Origen’s Doctrine of the Soul: Platonist or Christian?

by

Kirk Essary, B.A.

A Thesis

In

Classics

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Approved

Dr. Peder Christiansen Chairperson of Comittee

Dr. Donald Lavigne

Dr. Mark Webb

Fred Hartmeister Dean of the Graduate School

May, 2008

Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION...... 1

II. AN EXPOSITION OF ORIGEN'S PSYCHOLOGY ...... 7

III. PSYCHE AS NOUS AND ITS FALL...... 25 The Pre-existence...... 33 Body and Soul...... 36 Koros...... 38

IV. TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS IN THE DE PRINCIPIIS...... 41 Plato's Phaedrus...... 42 Three Kinds of Transmigration...... 49

V. PURGATION, EDUCATION, AND SALVATION...... 54 The Beneficent Nature of God's Punishment...... 54 Is a Soul's Salvation Epistemological? ...... 58 The Restoration of All Things?...... 66

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 78

Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION There has been, in recent decades, a resurgence of scholarship on Origen, mostly

due to the realization that his ability as a philosopher and his impressive output of writings is far more important than his potential status as a heretic. His status as a heretical theologian is eclipsed by his ability as a philosopher. Few now doubt his importance and stature as one of the most important thinkers of early Christianity. In fact, many argue that he was the first real systematic theologian in the modern sense of the term. Unfortunately, his anathematization leaves us in the dark about many things for two

main reasons. The Church, having burned as many of his works as they could get their hands on, unfortunately destroyed the majority of his corpus in its original language

(Greek). This coincides with the power shift from the Greek East to the Latin West, and

we are left with questionable translations of some of Origen’s work into Latin by

Rufinus.1

Given the renewed sense of Origen’s import, an in-depth examination of the

influences on Origen’s doctrine of the soul is overdue. The goal of this paper is to

examine Origen’s doctrine of the soul in the De Principiis (Greek Peri Archon; English

On First Principles), his most explicitly philosophical and overtly speculative work.

Before we begin, however, it is necessary to discuss, at least in brief, the background of

the text to be used. The De Principiis has been all but lost in its original Greek form.

Before the final copies were lost or destroyed, Rufinus translated this text (and several of

1 There has been sufficient lamentation, however, in Origen scholarship over Rufinus’ apologetic translations, and I agree with those who think that we can still glean plenty from these Latin works. 1 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Origen’s other works) into Latin, thereby preserving them, though on his own terms.

Origen was of course dead at this point, and his ideas (and those of his followers) had

stirred up a good deal of controversy. Thus, on account of his anathematization, other

ancient writers, and obvious gaps in the text of Rufinus, it is generally agreed that

Rufinus tampered with the text, perhaps omitting some of Origen’s more explicitly

heretical ideas. To what extent the text is modified, of course, we will probably never

know, and this question looms over every Origen scholar, constantly reminding him that almost everything he knows of Origen’s thought is to some extent speculation. More specifically, the version of Rufinus’ latin text that has won out over the years was compiled by Paul Koetschau in 1913, who himself notoriously distrusted Rufinus.

The English translation of the text to be used is by G.W. Butterworth (1936), and

often has printed parallel passages of Rufinus’ Latin and someone else’s Greek.2 “Our desire,” Butterworth writes, “is simply to discover what Origen thought.”3 Thus, as R.J.

Rombs points out, their objective moved from getting the text right to getting the doctrine

right. And in doing so, warrant was given to introduce not words guaranteed to be those

of Origen, but “Origenistic” material into the text. What is Origenistic in this case is of course determined by the editors (we will see in this paper how utterly difficult it is to

determine what Origen himself actually thought).4

To quote Rombs:

2 Who else’s depends on the topic, what is extant, and what Koetschau decided he thought best fit. These insertions by Koetschau of other writers’ quotations and commentary on Origen’s thought into the actual text represents a departure from previous editions. 3 Butterworth, xli (De Princ.) 4 R.J. Rombs, “A Note on the Status of Origen’s De Principiis in English.” Vigilae Christianae 61 (2007), p. 23. 2 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Scholarship, however, since Koetschau’s and Butterworth’s work has shown the complete distrust of Rufinus’ text to be excessive. Henri Crouzel and John Rist have each shown… that although Rufinus at times paraphrases, condenses, and elaborates, he never deliberately does violence to Origen’s meaning.5

We will assume a similar viewpoint to Rombs regarding the text. When the topic calls for

it, we will consider the transposed passages from Koetschau to determine their fairness.

We will have to keep in mind that it is possible that Rufinus has made important

omissions, but it will also be made clear that if Rufinus was attempting to exonerate

Origen of all negative charges in his translation, he fails indeed. And although there have

since been more responsible translations into French, no one as yet has improved upon

Butterworth’s English translation, and no one as yet has published a revised edition of

Rufinus’ Latin. All quotations from the De Principiis will be noted specifically: if there is

no comment aside from the reference in the footnote or the text, the quotation is taken from Rufinus’ Latin.6 Where Koetschau has inserted Greek from Origen’s commentators

and enemies, the text will be discussed, but should in general be viewed with much caution. It should also be noted that skepticism of Koetschau's interpolations does not

originate in this paper. Few Origen scholars today are not skeptical of Koetschau, and

contemporary scholars have argued against specific instances of interpolation.7 Let us

now turn to Origen’s doctrine of the soul.

The paper will be divided into four parts, three of which correspond to a period in

the life of the Christian soul, as Origen discusses it. The first chapter will be devoted to a

general exposition of Origen’s doctrine of the soul as it is laid out in De Principiis, and

5 Ibid. 6 English translations of the quotations will be Butterworth’s or mine, and will be noted appropriately. 7 See, for instance, the Rombs article cited above. 3 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

will also include many of the ideas attributed to Origen which we may later decide are

not properly his. The final three chapters will examine in depth each different stage of the

life of the soul. The first will look at the soul’s inception and fall; the second stage entails

the life of the soul in a body, and here we will also examine the potential trans-migratory

nature of the soul; and the final chapter will examine the soul’s ascent and the

consummation, the process that Origen terms the apokatastasis.

There are only a few sources that Origen cites explicitly, or quotes directly, aside

from the books of the Bible, which are quoted often throughout the De Principiis.8 What we are interested in here is whether Platonism influenced Origen as much as has been traditionally thought regarding his doctrine of the soul.9 The comparisons (and

divergences) to Platonism in Origen’s doctrine of the soul will occupy most of our

attention, for it is this comparison that led to his anathematization. Another generally

agreed upon source of Origen’s is Philo.10 Of course Philo’s primary influence on Origen

was in his exegetical method, from which Origen borrowed heavily, and in turn perhaps

left his most important mark on Christian thought and method. Philo, however, had

metaphysics too and his own ideas about the soul, ideas with which Origen was no doubt

familiar. 11 That Philo is to a great extent an avowed Platonist is not of little interest for

our purposes.

8 Other direct references include Clement of Alexandria, and the non-canonical Shepherd of Hermas. 9 And to a lesser extent the Neoplatonism that was floating around Alexandria during his lifetime – he was the older contemporary of Plotinus, though it is dubious as to whether they ever met, and increasingly questionable as to whether they did in fact share that mysterious teacher Ammonius Saccas. 10 See David Runia, Philo and the Church Fathers, Leiden ; New York : E.J. Brill, 1995 11 Again, Runia argues that the primary source texts of many extant Philo works come directly from Origen’s library at Caesarea; also, Origen’s teacher Clement cites Philo frequently. 4 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

The remaining sources that are of enough import to be discussed in the context of this paper are all Christian. In the De Principiis, Origen explicitly quotes and cites

Christian writers such as St. Paul and the Gospel writers, extra-biblical sources such as the Shepherd of Hermas, and, importantly, Clement (Origen’s teacher and theological predecessor at Alexandria). So we will see to what extent Jesus, St. Paul, and other writers in the early Christian tradition influenced Origen in his conclusions on the soul.

Important questions to be answered, then, are: which of these two camps (Platonist or

Christian) did Origen conceive of himself as working within? Does he Platonize as much as has often been argued? Did he in fact deserve the harsh judgment he received postumously in 553?

Given this intellectual background, the paper will proceed thus. In discussing the doctrine of the soul, I will put forth what I think Origen is saying, using the De Principiis for support. Where Origen seems to be saying something particularly contrary to later settled Christian dogma, I will try to discover whence these ideas arise, whether from logical necessity within his own system, or from some outside influence. This method will be used for every stage of the development of the soul; that is, after its inception we will discuss the soul’s fall from grace and descent, followed by the possibility of its transmigration in Origen’s writings (a topic of much debate). Next, we will look at the life of the soul once it has entered an earthly body and the consequent implications (was

Origen a dualist in the Platonic sense?). The last section is very important in Origen scholarship, as he was the first Christian to be said to have developed a systematic universal soteriology. Who influenced Origen in his ideas of the apokatastasis panton

(restoration of all things), or was he original in positing such an idea? Or, even more

5 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

importantly, do we have adequate evidence to argue that he believed such things? These

and other questions will be dealt with in this paper, with the end-goal in mind to answer

the question to what extent is Origen a Christian and to what extent is he a Platonist in his

psychology? This question has previously been dealt with by other scholars broadly by

considering themes in Origen’s corpus. I am not here denouncing the authors of such

work, for I will be consulting them extensively in what follows, but there has as yet been

no in-depth look at Origen’s most well known work in this regard, attempting to find out

exactly what we can and cannot say regarding Origen’s doctrine of the soul in the De

Principiis.12

12 Crouzel and Danielou are the most prevalent sources for Origen’s doctrine in general. On Origen’s Platonism, see especially Mark J. Edwards, Origen Against Plato. 6 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

CHAPTER II

AN EXPOSITION OF ORIGEN'S PSYCHOLOGY The most effective way to begin this paper is to lay out Origen’s doctrine of the

soul, if only crudely, as it appears in the De Principiis. Origen’s reasons for any given

point of doctrine, and the controversy surrounding it, will be discussed at length in the

final three chapters of the paper. We will discuss first the early stages of the life of soul

(psyche), in which it seems to be actually mind (nous), in Origen’s philosophy. That is,

for Origen, ‘soul’ is actually the fallen state of ‘mind’. Jerome has him say, “Mind when

it fell was made soul, and soul in its turn when furnished with virtues will become

mind.”13 Note here that even after it has fallen from mind, the soul is preexistent with

respect to the body, a rather Platonic idea (and one of the anathemas against Origen.)14

Unfortunately Origen does not distinguish, in any qualitative fashion, between mind and soul, other than that soul is fallen mind. At one point, Origen hedges, saying “or whatever we call it…”15 Even worse is that he seems to use mind and soul interchangeably in

various places in the De Principiis, though not, I do not think, to the point of rendering

this part of the discussion devoid of meaning.16 He does suggest an etymological relation,

13 De Principiis, Book II, Chap. VIII, Section 3. 14 An argument might be made here in Origen’s favor regarding preexistence. It is possible that Origen didn’t believe in the incorporeality of souls (or minds) at all, meaning that even in its most pure form the soul/mind may have been enclosed in some sort of body. The anathema was almost certainly referring to the preexistence of the soul with respect to the human body, an idea I think is clearly stated in Origen’s Peri Archon. Whether or not the soul had any kind of body at all times will be discussed later, but even if it holds that it did, Origen still may not be exonerated for the above reason. 15 II.XI.5. 16 In Book I, Chapter I Origen, in an attempt to shed light on the mind of God, gives a human analogy of getting sea sick, where it is the mind, not the soul, which is affected by the body in such an instance. For our purposes, then, we will have to simply contextualize each relevant instance of ‘mind’ and ‘soul’. 7 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

also pointed out in Plato, more explicitly in Aristotle, and in Tertullian.17 Rufinus

translates as follows:

“We must ask whether perhaps even the word soul, which in Greek is psyche, was not formed from psychesthai, with the idea of growing cold after having been in a diviner and better state, and whether it was not derived from thence [sic] because the soul seems to have grown cold by the loss of its first natural and divine warmth and on that account to have been placed in its present state with its present designation.”18

That Origen actually thinks this etymology to be evidence for postulating the fall of the

soul from mind is dubious, but is more likely to be pointing it out as an important

coincidence that may have some bearing on the situation. Further, that Origen could have

believed the etymological development of any word to have causative and inseparable

ties to the word’s referent in metaphysical terms is hardly plausible.19

Again, unfortunately, Origen hardly speculates as to what the nature of mind may

have been before the cooling, except for arguing that it descends from better to worse:

“It seems to me that the departure and downward course of the mind must not be thought of as equal in all cases, but as a greater or less degree of change into soul, and that some minds retain a portion of their original vigour (vigoris), while others retain none or only a very little.”20

This is to say that souls will fall by varying degrees in proportion to how much vigor they

forego, which, as we will see, is the motivation for the diversity of creation. Origen then

departs into a short digression (one that is oft repeated in the De Principiis) on the explanation for the differences among men (and the diversity of creation in general) as

17 On psychesthai: Aristotle, De Anima, I. 2, 405b; Plato, Cratylus 399 D-E; Tertullian, De Anima 25 and 27. 18 II.VIII.3. I mention Rufinus particularly because Origen obviously would not have been translating Greek into Greek. 19 This etymological point will be discussed in more depth in the second chapter. That Origen mentions this relationship places him in a long tradition of similar thinking. 20 II.VIII.3. 8 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 being a direct result of the free choices of the soul. Free will is of utmost importance when considering the journey of the soul in Origen’s writings. The freedom of souls is, in fact, the most important feature of his doctrine of soul, perhaps of his entire theological cosmology. In any event, regarding the last quote, Origen does not hesitate to qualify it, as he does with several of his more promiscuous philosophical statements, that “we must not be supposed to put these forward as settled doctrines, but as subjects for inquiry and discussion.”21

Before we discuss Origen’s libertarianism, we ought to lay down his specific definition of psyche in the De Principiis. In Book II, Chapter VIII, Origen defines soul

“as an existence possessing imagination and desire… and capable of feeling and movement.” He then attributes this ‘existence’ to all living creatures, and further describes the soul as the “blood of the flesh,” quoting Leviticus. He mentions again this quality of being “rationally capable of feeling and movement” when he affirms the soul’s existence in angelic beings.22 Also, all souls are capable of praise or blame. No soul for

Origen is incapable of sin, and the only soul that did not fall away from the beginning unity was Christ’s. Origen attributes these qualities, then, and the qualities supra regarding the ‘cooling’, to the soul.

The most important quality of the soul for our purposes, however, is that it has free will, and this idea we will now address. Origen discusses rational natures and free will in Chapter IX of Book II where he argues that almost any movement of the mind/soul from one state or position to another is due to its own freedom. Origen puts

21 II.VIII.4. 22 II.VIII.1. 9 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

forth the idea that God granted minds free will, and this is the reason for their fall. They

chose to descend:

“For the Creator granted to the minds created by him the power of free and voluntary movement, in order that the good that was in them might become their own, since it was preserved by their own free will; but sloth and weariness of taking trouble to preserve the good, coupled with disregard and neglect of better things, began the process of withdrawal from the good.”23

Origen’s scholars cannot afford to overlook this point, or take it for granted. The idea of

free will has of course become a commonplace in the modern era in almost every realm

of thinking, but freedom as a developed notion was hardly such before Origen. He is

often rightly called the first free-will theologian.24 Crouzel discusses Origen’s

libertarianism partially as a reaction against pagan astrological determinism, and affirms

that it is “a controlling idea of his theology… and an actuating force of his cosmology.”25

This freedom for souls was in fact granted by the Creator, and without it the Creator

could not have obtained the “seeds and causes of variety and diversity.”26 So freedom is

no accidental quality of rational beings, but an essential aspect that might contribute to

God’s plan. The souls, we should clarify, are not good in the Pelagian sense and can

essentially save themselves, but do need God’s help to ascend to their former pure state

once they have fallen.

What, then, are the effects of this kind of freedom? Origen speaks much of

negligence in discussing the falling away of rational creatures. Before the fall, rational

23 IX.II.2. 24 To my knowledge, no previous philosopher put such weight on the free will of souls as did Origen. The implications of his libertarianism, as we will see, are far-reaching in his theology. 25 Crouzel, Origen, p. 211. Crouzel notes that theologians as late and as important as Erasmus appealed to Origen’s discussions on free will. 26 IX.II.2. 10 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

creatures are essentially on a level plane with respect to one another. Variety does not

emerge until freedom and negligence take their course.27 But post-fall, the category of

rational creatures extends from celestial beings to earthly beings to demons, all of which

are capable of praise or blame and of falling and rising through the various ranks of the

cosmos according to their own freedom and desire.28 All rational creatures are endowed with reason, and it is to what extent they abide in this reason that determines their placement in the cosmological order. Origen provides the analogy of a doctor (or a geometrician) who over time loses interest in his exercises and ceases working, in turn gradually losing his knowledge, until after a long enough time all his knowledge vanishes from his memory.29 This is analogous to those who have assiduously devoted themselves

to the knowledge of God, but slowly start neglecting this devotion and proportionally descend into evil and away from good.30

Once these rational creatures begin neglecting the good, they begin at least some form of transmigration, a rather Platonic idea that heavily contributes to Origen’s posthumous anathematization.31 We here quote a composite passage inserted by

Koetschau from Jerome, in a passage closely resembling Plato’s Phaedrus:

27 We must be careful here to distinguish between causation and motivation. As Crouzel says, “The Fall is not the cause, but the motivation for diversity in God’s creation.” Crouzel, op. cit., p. 210. 28 This might make possible the salvation of Satan, and the universal salvation of all souls, which is to be discussed at the end of this paper. 29 I.IV.1. 30 Note here the epistemic nature of salvation, or of being in the highest possible position in the cosmological order as the telos of knowledge. This potentially Platonic idea will be important in future discussion. 31 See below for a more nuanced discussion of this term. What Origen actually asserts versus what he merely speculates regarding the various bodies that souls might inhabit was not considered during his anathematization. We shall also see that he did not argue for nearly the same kind of transmigration as Plato. 11 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

“All rational creatures who are incorporeal and invisible, if they become negligent, gradually sink to a lower level and take to themselves bodies suitable to the regions into which they descend; that is to say, first, ethereal bodies, and then aereal. And when they reach the neighborhood of the earth they are enclosed in grosser bodies, and last of all are tied to human flesh. It is a mark of extreme negligence and sloth for any soul to descend and to lose its own nature so completely as to be bound, in consequence of its vices, to the gross body of one of the irrational animals.”32

So goes the descent of the soul, every inch traveled bound inextricably up with the

freedom of the soul itself.33 An explanation of the idea that the life of the soul transcends

epochs in a rather broad sense is in due order here. I will subsequently refer to this idea as

the soul’s “trans-epochal” nature.34 This idea, of course, is not unique in Origen, but it

has been argued that Origen exploits and stretches the potential of such a doctrine as far

as is conceivable. Theoretically, any given soul could start its descent at the beginning of

time, move about through the hierarchy of position according to its own decision and

merit, and finally be the very last soul to return to its original state at the consummation.

This soul has only one life, but actively transcends every epoch in Origen’s cosmology,

and potentially rests in a different position in each epoch. An important result of this idea

is that souls are not created to fill bodies, but might exist in a much purer form for

thousands of years until they make enough poor decisions to render themselves worthy of

being entombed in the human body, or worse. In fact, according to Origen, “God… made

32 Koetschau has transposed this passage from Jerome Con. Joh. Hieros. 16, and its legitimacy will be discussed at length in chapter 3. 33 The Phaedrus passage from which Origen may have drawn will be compared at length in the second chapter. It is also important to note that both the fall and the salvation of the soul are epistemological in their nature. All is to do with knowledge and how it is put to use. 34 I borrowed this term from Sources of Origen’s Doctrine of Freedom, B. Darrell Jackson. Yale University. 12 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

the present world and bound the soul to the body as punishment.”35 But did he really

argue all of these things explicitly?

In order to better understand Origen’s brand of transmigration, and the earthly

realm as a kind of prison as one of its stages, I will briefly discuss each of the levels or

positions that Origen mentions in his cosmological hierarchy.36 Regarding the highest

ranked, that is the angels and archangels, Origen believes their goodness to be merely

accidental. Essential goodness and holiness apply only to the members of the Trinity.37

Origen has also worked out a kind of ethics in terms of angels and their authority (which we can apply to all realms). In general terms, within the hierarchy there seems to be a moral responsibility of each position to its immediate inferior. For instance, archangels have authority over angels, but also a responsibility to help them ascend. Origen writes,

“they were given the rule and lordship over those who had fallen lower still… though they themselves had fallen from this salvation and were in need of one to lead them back.” 38 Regarding specific duties in specific angels (Origen mentions Raphael as

healer, Gabriel as the angel of wars, and Michael as attending to prayers and

supplications of mortals), Origen reverts once again to the individual merit of the

particular angel. The following lengthy quote sheds light on the function of the cosmological hierarchy:

35 I.VIII.2. 36 Some, like Crouzel and Edwards, deny transmigration per se in Origen as a doctrine upheld. In its usual form (that is, Pythagorean), I agree, but it is certainly the case that there is some sort of transmigration (a migration across realms) going on, so I will uphold the term “transmigration” in these discussions, and I will look at Edwards’ and Crouzel’s arguments in depth in the third chapter. 37 I.V.3. 38 I.VIII.1. 13 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

“We must believe that they have obtained these duties for no other reason except their own individual merits and that they entered upon them as a reward for the zeal and virtue they displayed before the construction of this world; after which event this or that kind of duty was assigned to each member of the order of archangels, while others were counted worthy of being enrolled in the order of angels and to act under this or that archangel, or under this or that leader or chief of his order.”39

Here, then, we see how heaven might function for Origen. The angels fall in different

degrees in the ethereal realm, and are assigned different roles according to their merits,

resulting in diversity and hierarchy within the heavenly realm. He also quotes Revelation

as evidence that a particular angel might be charged with a particular city, like Ephesus,

and mentions the place in Acts where Peter and Paul have their own guardian angels, as it

were.40 Origen makes sure to point out again that God did not create these angels for

these particular jobs, which would denote partiality in the Creator (something to be

eschewed in Origen), but the entire hierarchy is a direct result of the Fall.41 Had no one

soul chosen to rebel, there would be no hierarchy in the first place, except, one would

assume, between the Trinity and created minds. Each angelic soul is assigned with his

duty in accord with his merit. Mention must be made here of the stars, which are also

“ethereal” and rational. The stars can also sin and fall, but there is debate as to whether

they arrive in their bodies on account of their merit, or are placed there merely for the service of men (stars might be the exception to the rule). Crouzel reads Rufinus’ text as

39 I.VIII.1. 40 Acts 12 and 27, respectively. 41 For Origen, interestingly, man was actually created as a result of the Fall, as a punishment for souls; the Fall is not a result of the choice of human beings, but pre-existent souls. This cosmogony would be perfectly consistent with Origen’s allegorical interpretation of much of Scripture, the story of Adam and Eve being relevant here. Unfortunately, Origen’s commentary on Genesis 1 is lost. 14 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

saying the latter, but I argue for a false dichotomy.42 There is no reason why Origen’s

Creator would not have created this position as a result of the fall but also to serve a particular purpose.

From the celestial or ethereal realm a soul would apparently descend to the

“aereal” realm.43 The aereal bodies are called thus, as Origen explains, on account of

their being “thin like the air,” for daemons should not be thought of as incorporeal.44

Origen is said to mention aereal bodies at another point, when discussing the burden of material bodies in general:

“…just as we men for certain sins have been enveloped in these bodies of ours, which are gross and heavy, so the lights of heaven have been given bodies of one sort or another to enable them to provide more or less light, while the daemons, for greater offences, have been clothed with aereal bodies.”45

This passage is unfortunately ambiguous. Whether the daemons are clothed with aereal

bodies because they are worse than those clothed with ethereal bodies or on account of

their being worse than those burdened with earthly bodies is unclear. The syntax

suggests the former, but the implications do not make much sense, and later we have

Origen speaking of the possibility of the daemons ascending into earthly bodies on

account of good deeds. So we must take the aereal bodies, when they clothe daemons, as

the lowest form of the hierarchy, even though Origen places them higher in his

42 Crouzel, op. cit., p. 212. 43 There is occasionally a distinction in Origen, it seems, between celestial and ethereal. He mentions that the sun and stars (which are, in fact, ensouled) are enclosed in “ethereal” bodies. The case may be, however, that angels and archangels are also in these types of bodies, but Origen is not specific enough. He mentions “ethereal” as the first realm through which a soul would descend, followed by aereal. 44 I.pref.8. 45 I.VII.4. Koetschau has inserted this passage from Jerome Ep. ad Avitum 4. 15 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

discourse.46 Thus we will discuss daemons at length after we discuss the earthly bodies,

as the latter are morally, if not physically, superior.

So, for clarification, there are at least three post-lapsarian realms for souls:

celestial (angelic); aereal (daemonic); and terrestrial (earthly). Origen believes, as was

quoted above, that it takes extreme negligence for a soul to end up in a body on earth, and

we now know that God created this realm primarily as a punishment for souls.47 What

sort of life one is to live, and even what sort of body by which one is to carry this life out,

is based on the merits of the soul before it was implanted in the body. The infinitely

diverse nature of the world (in every realm, earthly or otherwise) is due solely to the fact

that souls have individual freedom. The positing of free will as motivation for the diverse

scale of being is not only an explanation of cosmology, but also a theodicy in response to

questions posed by Marcion and Valentinus regarding the prima facie unjust nature of the

diversity of being.48 Origen belabors this point, and insists that without recognizing free-

will inherent in rational beings (as a gift from God), God will prove himself to be

unrighteous, for there is no other explanation for the problem of evil and of diversity.

This “punishment” of life on earth is not without end. Each soul is placed in its

given position in accord with God’s vast plan and judgment, and it has been attributed to

Origen that at the end of each life, the soul is re-placed according to its merits in the

previous one. Origen writes:

46 It seems as though one reason for this might be that daemons in Origen’s cosmology have more power, in some vague sense, than humans. This would explain the world being subject to the ‘Prince of Darkness’, and whatnot, in biblical narrative. 47 Divine punishment is always remedial in Origen, a topic to be discussed along with the soul’s ascent in the final chapter of this paper. 48 II.IX.5. 16 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

“Whoever purges himself when placed in this life, will be prepared for every good work in the future, whereas he who does not purge himself will be, in accordance with the extent of his impurity, a ‘vessel unto dishonor’, that is, an unworthy one… before the present life there were rational vessels (vasa rationabilia), either wholly purged or less so, that is, vessels which had purged themselves (se ipsa purgaverint) or had not, and that from this circumstance each vessel is received, according to the measure of its purity or impurity, its place or region or condition in which to be born or to fulfill some duty in this world.” 49

So every life in any epoch or realm is one more chance to purge oneself, at least partially,

so as to rise to a higher level in the next life. This is at least prima facie metaphysical

reincarnation, but we will see that it is not so cut-and-dried. Man’s purpose for his life on

earth is to try to better educate and thereby purge himself in order to climb the

cosmological ladder, and so as not to descend either into the aereal body of a daemon, or

perhaps, what is worse, into the body of an irrational animal.

But life on earth is also a punishment, and we cannot forget this. What does this

say of Origen’s God? In particular, it brings into the discussion Origen’s conception of

divine justice, which plays an important role in his cosmology and soteriology, perhaps

second in importance only to the free will of souls. Origen’s God is ultimately a forgiving and beneficent one, and his idea of justice, it is oft repeated, is remedial with respect to punishment.50 Punishment must have a telos. Origen talks explicitly about subjugation

and salvation as synonymous in those passages in the New Testament where Christ is

spoken of as subjugating his enemies, and their being transformed into his footstool.51

“For the word subjection, when used of our subjection to Christ, implies the salvation,

proceeding from Christ, of those who are subject,” writes Origen, and then proceeds to

49 II.IX.8. 50 II.X.5. etc. 51 See, for example, I Cor. XV. 24, 25, 28 17 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

cite several sources regarding the universality of the subjugation. But let us not get ahead

of ourselves, for there will be ample time to discuss the consummation. The point to be

realized here is that God’s justice always has a purgatorial element, and that eternal

suffering is unjust.

Regarding souls descending into the bodies of irrational beasts, it has occasionally

been argued that according to Origen this can be accomplished by rational natures from any of the three main realms, that is, ethereal, aereal, terrestrial. Rufinus outright denies this as a cosmological possibility in his translation, but Jerome otherwise.52 In any event,

if the idea is there, it an interesting, non-linear format to Origen’s cosmology. There seem

to be at least two planes of descent. A soul can descend from an angel to a human and on

to a daemon through its own volition, but it does not have to become a cow before it

becomes a principality of evil. However, the descent from the highest earthly being to the

lowest is on a different plane entirely, and it has explicitly to do with losing one’s

rationality altogether through the most extreme form of negligence. The worst of all

daemons is still a rational creature, while a lizard certainly is not. But two separate

descents (and a partial ascent) would be required for a soul to go from daemon to the

earthly realm as human and then on to irrational beast.

But this is all speculation. The fact of the matter is that the text is unclear (perhaps

to the point of contradiction). Usually the contradiction arises out of Koetschau’s

transposing other writers’ words into the text. For instance, he later inserts passages

about the decline from the rational to the sensible and on to the insensible, which results

52 Jerome, Ep. ad Avitum, 4, for instance. Crouzel denies this as a real possibility in Origen’s psychology, a point to be addressed in the third chapter. 18 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

in an overwhelming use of the passions (which are, for Origen, irrational).53 Interesting

to know would be how Origen thinks a spider could ascend back up to join the

apokatastasis, and complete the consummation, since elsewhere Origen asserts that the

irrational animals do not have free will. This might be a point in his doctrine that exists

only as hearsay, since it is dubious that Origen could have reconciled these ideas if

pressed, or would have cared to. In one instance, in a different context, Origen writes,

“As for dumb animals and birds… it seems superfluous to inquire about them, since it is certain that they should be regarded as of contingent and not primary importance.” If this is in fact the case, that descent into animal bodies is not possible, then Origen’s doctrine of “transmigration” is of a wholly different sort than was Pythagoras’ and Plato’s.

The final element to be discussed with regard to the descent of souls is that which

Origen calls the “aereal” realm, or the realm where souls are entombed in the bodies of

daemons. To begin, we might do well to repeat the fact that Origen believed even the worst of the daemons, in the beginning, to be as good as everyone else, and the idea that

God pre-ordained the wickedness of any given soul is absurd.

“No one is stainless by essence or by nature… and the final result of [sloth and negligence of the individual] is, that when too much progress, if I may use the word, has been made in wickedness, a man may descend to such a state (if any shall come to so great a pitch of negligence) as to be changed into what is called an opposing power.”54

So each of the opposing powers is likewise placed in his rank in proportion to the evil he

has assumed. While the celestial and (at least some) rational earthly beings still desire to

ascend, “there exists that other order of rational creatures, who have so utterly abandoned

53 I.VIII.4. Koetschau transposes this section from Gregory of Nyssa, Opificio, c. 28. 54 I.V.5. 19 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

themselves to wickedness that they lack the desire, rather than the power, to return…”55

The rank of evil rational beings, then, is a direct analogue to the other realms on the scale

of being; they just happen to be those souls who erred the most, and abandoned their

desire to know God. The analogy can be extended to the order of rank among themselves

as well, with various principalities, powers, and thrones dwelling in the lower realm as

there are in the other realms. The above discussion should suffice for an exposition of the

descent of souls, and the hierarchy of position and hence the diversity of creation on

account of free will. We will now turn to the ascent, which will eventually take us back to

the beginning, since, as Origen says, “the end must be like the beginning.”56

A near-mirror image may be expected when comparing the descent with the

ascent of souls, in terms of cosmological hierarchy. However, the ascent is a much slower

process than the descent, to any soul’s dismay. Purgation, as we shall see, is not as easy

as corruption. Again, choice precedes ascent; it is up to each individual soul to decide the

time and pace of the purgation on the road to salvation. The ascent of souls in accord with

their freedom should not be mistaken as an anachronistic form of pure Pelagianism.

Goodness, as we have mentioned, though it should be repeated, is an accidental quality of

souls, and is only possible “by the reception or inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”57 Though choice is requisite for the salvation of any given soul, it is not possible without help from

the Trinity. The soul cannot re-educate itself, a prerequisite, as we shall see, for salvation.

What it is that souls are ultimately striving for Origen makes clear at several

points. In sum, Origen writes:

55 I.VIII.4. 56 I.VI.2. 57 I.VIII.3. 20 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

“The end of the world and the consummation will come when every soul shall be visited with the penalties due for its sins… We believe, however, that the goodness of God through Christ will restore his entire creation to one end, even his enemies being conquered and subdued.”58

The process of redemption, which we will refer to using the Greek term that Origen used,

apokatastasis, or “restoration,” in the modern language of the free will/determinism

debate, might be called compatibilistic. That is to say, it takes both God and man to complete salvation; the free choice of souls to return to their Creator, the allowance by

God of their return, and the active purgation of souls by God so that they may return.

Apokatastasis should also be distinguished from the consummation, the latter being the

very end, when all creation is redeemed. The consummation is the result of apokatastasis.

So how do souls complete the consummation? What does the ascent look like? In

terms of the remedial punishment, libertarianism, as ever, abounds. Origen believes that

the proverbial punishing fire is actually kindled by each soul for itself. He writes,

“…every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire, and is not plunged into a

fire which has been previously kindled by someone else or which existed before him.”59

This particular idea is explained, of course, via Origen’s allegorical interpretation of

relevant scripture.60 The punishment of the soul, enacted by itself upon itself, amasses a

multitude of evil deeds which eventually boil up and are “kindled into penalties.”61 The

‘eternal fire’ is allegorical. This punishment is not possible apart from God’s will, however, and later Origen likens God’s remedial punishment to a physician who supplies

58 I.VI.1. 59 II.X.4. 60 II.X.4. 61 II.X.5. 21 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

aid to a sufferer with the object of restoring their health.62 Origen supplies further

argumentation coupled with abundant scriptural support for the idea that God’s punishing

fire is allegorical and remedial.63 Finally, regarding punishment, Koetschau appends a section from Justinian (quoting Origen) to his translation of De Principiis:

“There is a resurrection of the dead, and there is punishment, but not everlasting. For when the body is punished the soul is gradually purified, and so is restored to its ancient rank * * For all wicked men, and for daemons, too, punishment has an end, and both wicked men and daemons shall be restored to their former rank.”64

But punishment alone is not sufficient for redemption. At this point we turn to the

epistemic aspects of redemption in Origen.65 For a soul to be fully redeemed, it has to

acquire a proper knowledge of divine things, and be willing to maintain its focus on God.

Origen sums up the whole process in the following words:

“The mind, when nourished by this food of wisdom to a whole and perfect state, as man was made in the beginning, will be restored to the ‘image and likeness’ of God; so that, even though a man may have departed out of this life insufficiently instructed, but with a record of acceptable works, he can be instructed in that Jerusalem, the city of saints, that is, he can be taught and informed and fashioned into a ‘living stone’, a ‘stone precious and elect…’66

How, though, does this process work? Origen goes into a detailed explanation of various

things the soul will learn and the length of the passage results in Origen’s claiming that

no small interval of time may pass before this learning results in “an indescribable

62 II.X.6. 63 II.X.3-6. 64 II.X.8. This passage is transposed from Leont. Byz. De Sectis, Act X.6. 65 For certain aspects of the following discussion I am indebted to my good friend and Yale graduate student Mr. Jonathan Teubner, both from conversation and his unpublished paper, Redemptio Via Sapientia. 66 II.XI.3. 22 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

gladness.”67 During this interval of time, the saints ascend at least to some extent to “an abode in the air,” where they will learn the reasons for all the things they saw on earth.

Origen thinks that this is the place they call “paradise”: “This will be a place of instruction, and, so to speak, a lecture room or school for souls.”68 The soul which is pure

in heart, and of unpolluted mind will ascend more quickly through the abode in the air

until he reaches the kingdom of the heavens, passing through various “abiding places”

(which, Origen admits, the Greeks have called spheres), in each of which he will learn the

reasons for the things of that particular place. When the saints reach the heavens, they

will learn about the stars, and will then be shown by God the “causes of things and the

perfection of his creation.” Here souls will learn of “the things which are not seen.”

And so the rational being, growing at each successive stage, not as it grew when in this life in the flesh or body and in the soul, but increasing in mind and intelligence, advances as a mind already perfect to perfect knowledge, no longer hindered by its former carnal senses, but developing in intellectual power, ever approaching the pure and gazing ‘face to face’, if I may so speak, on the causes of things.69

Aristotelian ethics will play a role in our deeper discussion on this topic, for (as Mr.

Teubner has pointed out) Origen seemingly adopts this brand of ethical system when

discussing the redemption of the soul. In short, repetition and “the requisite zeal,” as

Origen puts it, with respect to knowing God are necessary conditions for a soul to

become perfect. For Aristotle, we will remember, repeating courageous acts makes one

courageous. In the same way, continual pursuit of knowledge of God perfects the soul.

So the soul feeds on appropriate and suitable food after reaching the top of the

cosmological ladder, but “food which must be understood to be the contemplation and

67 II.XI.6. 68 II.XI.6. 69 II.XI.7. 23 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 understanding of God.”70 This final result would be called the consummation, where every single soul, or rational being, is reunited with its Creator through this long process of epistemic justification and correction. Whether there will be even one soul left fallen we will discuss in due time. This system that I have laid out is a typical view of Origen’s cosmology. We will find that many of the points mentioned do not actually find support in the De Principiis and that many of Origen’s commentators have attributed unto him various heresies with very little evidence of his actually believing them.

70 II.XI.7. 24 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

CHAPTER III

PSYCHE AS NOUS AND ITS FALL In moving past the introductory section of the paper, I will begin discussing the

earliest stages of the soul in Origen’s De Principiis. In doing so, I will attempt to

illuminate potential sources and/or reasons for various points of doctrine. From antiquity

to today, Origen’s interpreters range from vicious accuser to staunch apologist. In

antiquity, Jerome was very selective in quoting the passages that were the most egregious

in his attacks on Origen (Crouzel calls these “heretical pearls”), while Rufinus toned

down Origen’s heterodoxy in his translations. In modern times, someone like Paul

Koetschau, who has produced the definitive edition of Origen’s De Principiis to date,

inserts these passages of Jerome and warns the reader of Rufinus’ errors. On the other

hand, Mark Edwards of Christ’s College, Oxford, publishes works with titles like Origen

against Plato, denying at every opportunity the Athenian philosopher’s influence on the

Alexandrian theologian, and qualifying most potentially heterodox points in Origen’s

own works. For this reason, that is, the ubiquitous disagreement about various issues, we will use modern secondary source literature merely as a guide, while trying to focus more explicitly on the original texts themselves. So, where we can, we will not so much try to say where Origen directly quotes Plato, but which of Origen’s doctrines are more

Platonic than Christian and vice versa.

It is often said that Origen argues that the soul (psyche) was originally mind

(nous), or pure intellect (nous katharos). We will proceed by examining all the instances

where Origen discusses this as a possibility in the De Principiis, and then discuss who his influences might have been. The first instances in Koetschau’s text are in Greek, inserted

25 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 into the text from John of Damascus’ Sacra Parallela and Leontinus’ De Sectis; their fragmentary nature poses some problems. The composition is made up of single sentences taken from varying commentators; some sentences themselves that are not complete. Nonetheless, Butterworth translates: “God did not begin to create minds

(noas)… before the ages minds (noes) were all pure (katharoi), daemons and souls and angels, offering service to God and keeping his commandments.” And the composite passage ends thus: “So from being ‘minds’ (no⎯on) they have become angels, archangels…”71 The digression in between the first and last parts of the passage is typical of what we see elsewhere in Origen: minds fall away on account of their free will which acts as a catalyst for diversity, and so on. This quotation seems to conflate ‘mind’ and

‘soul’ in the first complete sentence and it offers an inconsistency. The phrase “minds were all pure, both daemons and souls and angels…” leaves us thinking that daemons and souls existed with minds, and that there was some sort of identity relationship between them. However, this is inconsistent with what follows, since a few lines later we have,

“some sinned deeply and became daemons…” I consider this to be a confusion that arises from the amalgamated composition in Koetschau’s text coupled with an inaccurate quotation of Origen by Leontius. A quotation as opposed to a translation should already conjure caution (for reasons discussed in the first chapter), and this one seems to be less meticulous than what Origen himself would have composed. In any event, its essence can perhaps be trusted to some extent, for similar ideas arise elsewhere. If so, what we have thus far is an argument stating that minds were all pure before they exercised their free will, and they then changed into (the souls of?) angels, archangels, and so on.

71 I.VIII.1. 26 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

The next instance is the most important, given its length. That most of it is extant

in Rufinus’ Latin also lends some security.72 This is the singular (extant) instance where

Origen somewhat deeply investigates the idea of soul being mind in its original state. He

sets up the discussion with a line from Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians: “The apostle

Paul indeed intimates that there is a kind of soul-like man, whom he says ‘cannot receive

the things of the Spirit (pneumatos) of God.’”73 The word translated “soul-like” here is

psychikos in the Greek, and is used twice later by Paul at I Cor. XIV. 44-46, both times in

contradistinction to pneumatikos—the spiritual man. In Rufinus’ Latin, the word appears

as animalem, both words encompassing the word for ‘soul’ in their respective languages.

Typically, however, these would normally be translated as something like “natural”, rather than “soul-like”.74 Either way, Origen focuses on the etymological meaning, given

what follows: “On this account we ask whether there is not some substance which, in so

far as it is soul, is imperfect.”75 This rough etymological estimation (that is, psychikos

denoting psyche), then, sets the stage for Origen’s curiosity as to whether the soul may have been something different before the fall.

He points out that it is the soul that needs salvation, but wonders how this is

possible if it is something other than soul that “prays with the spirit,” and so on, quoting

72 Remember that Rufinus’ translation is largely apologetic, so that when we do have sections of text left in that are not particularly orthodox, we must count them as largely trustworthy. Rufinus would have been the last to add in or rephrase to make Origen seem more extreme than he was. 73 I.VIII.2; Paul: I Cor. II. 14. 74 The first part of the entry from A Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (which is more developed, and more pertinent, than LSJ) is as follows: “pertaining to the soul or life, in our lit. always denoting the life of the natural world and whatever belongs to it, in contrast to the supernatural world, which is characterized by pneuma.” As an adj. (e.g. psychikos anthropos), it means “an unspirited man, one who lives on the purely material plane, without being touched by the Spirit of God.” The wisdom that comes from above is also described by this adjective in the NT. As a substantive (e.g. to psychikon), it means “the physical in contrast to the pneumatikon. Finally, it is used in the sense of men who do not have Spirit (psychikoi, pneuma me echontes). 75 II.VIII.2. 27 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Paul again: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also. I will sing a psalm

with the spirit, I will sing a psalm with the mind also.”76 (In the Greek, both instances of

‘mind’ show up in the dative form noi.) Origen asks, “If the soul neither prays nor sings

with the spirit, how shall it hope for salvation? Or, if it should attain to blessedness, will

it no longer be called a soul?” This, then, is the essence of the problem for Origen; it is

soteriological. A lengthier quotation of Origen is helpful here:

Just as the Saviour came to save that which was lost, certainly when the lost is saved, it is no longer lost; so, if he came to save the soul, as he came to save that which was lost, the soul when saved remains a soul no longer. We must further inquire whether, as there was a time when that which has been lost was not lost, and there will be a time when it will not be lost, so also there was a time when the soul was not a soul and there will be a time when it will not be a soul.77

Origen reasons that if the soul is synonymous with the ‘lost,’ then once the lost is saved,

the soul must become something other than soul.78 Before Origen begins discussing

whether the soul was something different, he launches into an etymological explanation

of the reason for its being ‘soul’ in the first place (that ‘psyche’ is derived from

‘psychesthai’). He notes that others have mentioned this etymological relationship

(between ‘psyche’ and ‘psychesthai’) before, but before discussing it, he cites several

biblical examples of the “warmth” of God, and His being a consuming fire, and the

burning bush, and fervency of spirit. Then he writes, “As therefore God is ‘fire’ and the

angels ‘a flame of fire’ and the saints are all ‘fervent in spirit,’ so on the contrary those

who have fallen away from the love of God must undoubtedly be said to have cooled in

76 I Cor. XIV. 15. 77 II.VIII.3. From an inserted quotation from Justinian, by Koetschau. I slightly modified Butterworth’s translation. 78 This, of course, is not a necessary condition. It is not, however, the object of this paper to question Origen’s reasoning, but to discover his reasons. 28 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

their affection for Him and to have become cold.”79 He then goes on to link the ‘cold’

with other negative ideas and cites several more biblical passages as support, and finally he writes, “We must ask whether perhaps even the word psyche was not formed from psychesthai, with the idea of growing cold after having been in a diviner and better

state…”80 This, then, sums up Origen’s thoughts on this matter: he suggests indeed that

the relationship between psyche and psychesthai has both etymological and metaphysical

connotations.

Aristotle also mentions this explanation in De Anima, at I. 2. 405b: “others say

that the soul is the cold element, so called from breathing and cooling (katapsyxis).”81

Origen’s explanation, however, is much deeper than Aristotle’s in that it involves a connection to the biblical allusions to warmth and cooling. To say that he was secularly influenced on this point of doctrine would be to leave out the more important aspect of this theological discussion. The biblical allusions supersede the etymological relationship for Origen, and his use of extensive biblical citations on this idea are sufficient, I think, to posit that these hold more weight than Plato’s or Aristotle’s previous discussions on

‘cooling’. More evidence for this follows, with Origen continuing to discuss the lack of positive attributes to psyche in the scriptures. He challenges the reader to find in the Holy

Scriptures a place where the soul is described in real terms of praise, and then goes on to cite a handful of passages where it is described negatively. Then he writes, “We must see, therefore, whether perchance, as we said was made clear by its very name, the soul was so called from its having cooled from the fervour of righteousness and from its

79 II.VIII.2. 80 II.VIII.2. 81 See also, Plato, Cratylus 399 d-e, and Tertullian, De Anima 25 and 27 for similar explanations. 29 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

participation in the divine fire.” And he continues, “All these considerations seem to

show that when the mind departed from its original condition and dignity it became or

was termed a soul, and if ever it is restored and corrected it returns to the condition of

being mind.”82 So we finally reach Origen’s conclusion. His belief in a strong, almost

causal, relationship between ‘lost’ and ‘soul’ above, together with the etymological

significance of psychesthai and ample biblical evidence, leaves him thinking that soul

must have previously been something else in its most pure form before the fall. He has

not finished, however, discussing mind as soul and vice versa.83

Koetschau inserts this quotation of Origen by Jerome: “Mind when it fell was

made soul, and soul in its turn when furnished with virtues will become mind. This we

can find by considering the soul of Esau, who was condemned in a later life for ancient

sins.”84 Afterwards, we return to Rufinus’ translation: “It seems to me that the departure

and downward course of the mind must not be thought of as equal in all cases, but as a

greater or lesser degree of change into soul.”85 (Rufinus uses mens and animus.) This,

however, is all we have of Origen discussing soul as originally existing as mind. Whether

or not he discussed it at greater length, and Rufinus omitted much, we may never know.

Regardless, the (albeit scant) evidence suggests that Origen at least speculated that the

82 II.VIII.2. 83 Koetschau here inserts several of the anathemata against Origen, but I find these to be problematic, for several reasons, and they should be ignored in a discussion attempting to derive anything resembling certain doctrines from Origen’s writings. See also Edwards, Origen against Plato, for arguments against the validity of the anathemata. 84 II.VIII.3. That this is a quotation by Jerome should bring caution in light of recent research and arguments a la Edwards. Indeed, mentioning Esau after this particular line seems a non sequitur, and the rest of the Jerome passage smacks of tampering with its inconsistencies. 85 II.VIII.4. 30 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

fallen soul existed in a purer state before, as the nous katharos. Aside from the discussion

above, there are broader theological motivations for Origen’s postulations.

Origen indeed has reason to posit the pre-existence of souls and to argue that they

were once all equal. This, as Crouzel points out, arises from his attempts to refute

Valentinian determinism.86 Valentinus argued that souls were created in a diverse manner

from the beginning, but Origen could not agree. Only an unjust God could have

implanted innocent souls into bodies that have inherent maladies on earth. Souls cannot

be punished without reason in Origen’s view, and, to put it simply, being born blind

arbitrarily is unfair. There must have been a time, then, when all souls were equal, and it

must be their responsibility to remain thus—a soul’s freedom, not God’s designation,

results in his downfall. This idea, along with the above discussions on psychikos and psychesthai, the biblical allusions to cooling, and the negative references to psyche in the

New Testament, gives us an idea of why soul is soul, and also presents us with Origen’s idea that there was a time when it was more pure, more “rigorous.” The soul is indeed in a worse state than it could be, as no Christian would deny. Origen, however, believes not only in the potential goodness of the soul, but in a previous goodness as well. Why this previous state had to be mind and not something else, however, is somewhat unclear.

There is insufficient discussion of the idea in the De Principiis, and unfortunately

contemporary Origen scholarship is also largely silent, perhaps for that very lack of

evidence. Crouzel promises an explanation of why Origen thought that souls were once

intelligences, but does not deliver. Edwards’ discussion revolves not around soul as mind

86 Crouzel, Origen, p. 208. 31 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

per se, but on trying to disprove those who have accused Origen of believing in pre-

existence as defined by the soul not existing in any body. He writes:

The period during which the rational being abode with God as a nous katharos or pure intellect is thus not one in which it was entirely without a body, since no one (according to Origen) can sustain this state apart from the persons of the Holy Trinity. It is, however, a time in which the incorporeal nature suffers no adulteration from the presence of this companion, and in which it is not misleading to use the term ‘mind’ as a designation of the whole agent.87

Edwards then goes on to deny the typical idea of pre-existence in Origen, though this is

probably unnecessary. Crouzel has already pointed out that it was not heresy in Origen’s

own day to believe in the pre-existence of souls, as the doctrine had not been settled.88

And in any event, Origen was condemned posthumously for believing that souls existed prior to their bodies, a belief which Edwards does not rid Origen of in his semantics- focused interpretation of pre-existence in Origen. Nevertheless, Edwards’ explanation of mind/soul as a time in which it suffers no adulteration from its present companion (that is, a body), might help to reveal Origen’s own intentions on the question “why ‘mind’, specifically?”

The last place to look for influences on Origen of this particular doctrine is neo-

Platonism.89 Plotinus does affirm the idea of Mind descending to Soul, but he is the

younger contemporary of Origen, certainly not one of his influences. Our only hope may

be that elusive figure Ammonius Saccas, often described as the teacher of both Origen

and Plotinus. Unfortunately, nothing of Ammonius’ writings is extant, and whether he

87 Edwards, 2002, p. 96. 88 Crouzel, Origen, p. 207-8. 89 It does not exist in Philo, an occasional source for Origen’s thought and method, though it seems probable that Philo, Origen, and Plotinus all share the Greek term koros (boredom, or satiety), when discussing reasons for the soul’s descent, each employing it in a different sense. 32 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

was in fact teacher of Origen and Plotinus is a subject of unending debate. It would be quite convenient, however, on this one point to appeal at least speculatively to Ammonius as a potential source for this doctrine. Potentiality and speculation, though, are all that we

have. There was, it seems, another Origen around the same time in Alexandria, a neo-

Platonist. Regarding Origen the Christian, Langerbeck argues, referencing a text by

Hierocles, that Ammonius may have been the most important basis for subsequent anti-

Gnostic sentiment in Christianity. He also states that Origen (the Christian) most likely

found support for his anti-Valentinian libertarianism in Ammonius’ teachings. Mark

Edwards, however, dissents. 90

In the end, it is not entirely surprising that Origen makes the jump from soul to

mind, or vice versa. In fact, it can be seen as an implicit conclusion when one considers

the contemplation of God and all things holy as the telos of the soul (or mind). Add to

this the negative connotations that Origen applies to psyche and it is not a far leap to nous as the purest form of the rational being, especially in Greek philosophical discourse. This, however, is not explicit in Origen’s own writings, and, unfortunately, we haven’t the time for a discussion on epistemology. Thus, I think that regarding this particular point of

Origen’s doctrine of the soul, what actual hard evidence we have supports the argument that Origen’s motivations are rather more Christian than Platonist.

90 Edwards, 2002, p. 90ff. I have learned that Edwards is far from alone in minimizing Ammonius’ influence. At a recent conference, I gave a paper on Origen and merely hinted at the possibility of appealing to Ammonius’ influence on this point. My respondent, Dr. Slaveva- Griffin of Florida State University, amicably denounced me for such naïveté. Apparently, everyone wishes that they could point to Ammonius, but the evidence simply is not there. 33 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

The Pre-existence

More can be said regarding the idea of the pre-existence in general in the De

Principiis. When Origen wonders whether the souls of heavenly bodies (i.e. stars et al) are implanted from without, he appeals to the soul/body problem regarding humans for support:

If the soul of a man, which while it remains the soul of a man is certainly inferior [to that of the stars], can be proved not to have been formed with the body but separately, and placed in the body from without, much more will this be the case with the souls of those who are called ‘heavenly beings’.91

Origen then appeals to scripture: “Now with regard to man, how could it be possible that the soul of him who ‘supplanted his brother in the womb,’ that is, Jacob, was formed at the same time as his body?”92 He also reminds us of John the Baptist, who jumped in his mother’s womb in Luke I. After a few more scriptural references, Origen appeals to the abovementioned line of argument contra Valentinus and asks how, at Jeremiah I. 5, “the soul and formative principle of him who ‘before he was fashioned in the womb’ is said to have been ‘known by God’ and ‘before he came to the birth was sanctified by him,’” could have been formed at the same time as his body? For this would lead to a God who fills some men with the Spirit regardless of justice, and sanctifies them undeservingly.

This, Origen says, is the “consequence of that line of argument which maintains that souls come into existence at the same time as their bodies.”93

So far, then, Origen has argued directly from scripture for the doctrine of the pre- existence of the soul. Whatever else Rufinus may have tried to hide, he left plenty of

91 I.VII.4. 92 I.VII.4; Gen. XXV. 22-26. 93 I.VII.4. 34 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

evidence that Origen did believe that souls were created before their bodies.94 Origen

even speaks explicitly of souls acquiring a certain amount of evil “before they were born

into bodies.”95 And he continues:

It is probable that these movements [towards good or evil] furnish grounds for merit even before the souls do anything in this world, so that in accord with such causes or merits they are ordained from the divine providence right from their birth, and even before it, if I may so speak, to endure conditions either good or evil.96

Why Edwards tries to exonerate Origen wholesale for believing in the doctrine of pre-

existence through a series of somewhat confusing digressions is unclear.97 These

quotations should suffice to show that Origen strongly entertained the idea of a pre-

existence of souls. The idea of the pre-existence of the soul is, of course, a Platonist one.

Charging Origen with Platonism in this regard, however, is somewhat dubious. If his

ideas on this matter are rooted in Platonism, Origen certainly found biblical support for

them, as we have seen. Also, it can probably be agreed upon that Origen’s belief in the

pre-existence was sufficiently different from Plato’s that the judgment of the council of

553 was a bit harsh. Edwards does show us that Origen’s belief in a pre-existence is not

conventional, and perhaps contradictory in the De Principiis. Origen probably does not

believe in an immaterial soul (so pre-existence does not mean pre-material) and clearly

posits a resurrection of the body. Thus, if Origen believes that the end will be like the

94 There are, indeed, more explicit passages with regard to the pre-existence, but they are inserted by Koetschau from other authors quoting Origen. One line, from a composite Koetschau passage reads, “God therefore made the present world and bound the soul to the body as punishment” (I.VIII.1). We will discuss the idea of the world as punishment in the following chapter. 95 III.III.5. 96 III.III.5. 97 Edwards, 2002, p. 97ff. 35 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

beginning (something we will discuss later), we might infer that the soul must have

inhabited some sort of body in the beginning as well.98

A point already mentioned that is also applicable here is Origen’s belief in the

free will of souls. Origen reserves this belief in part as a response to Valentinus, Marcion,

Basilides, and to those who wonder why certain humans are born into certain conditions

and so on. A baby born blind that has not previously sinned would be proof of God’s

injustice to Origen.99 Thus, to solve the problem, Origen has souls fall into their present condition; everything must be based on merit. Esau’s unfavorable position is due to his previous misdoings, not an arbitrary choice by God to favor one brother over the other.

This freedom is driven by Origen’s beliefs regarding the Christian God and Justice;

Platonist cosmology is a secondary consideration at best.

Crouzel affirms both Platonic pre-existence and anti-Valentinian motives. He asks, “Where does this hypothesis come from? It comes from Platonism… but it seems

that the reasons for the pre-existence were not the same in Origen as in Plato.”100 The difference lies, as Crouzel points out, in that for Origen there is no explicit mention of a contemplation of the Forms during the pre-existence, a requisite element in Plato.

Perhaps, then, either Origen found solace in Plato’s belief in the pre-existence, or he modified this Platonic tenet into what he thought was an orthodox Christian one, with

98 This will, in fact, prove to be false—the end is not exactly like the beginning. 99 See Ch. 1. 100 Op. cit. Crouzel, p. 207. 36 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

ample biblical support.101 A discussion on the distinction between mind (or soul) and

body would be appropriate here as the next step in Origen’s cosmology.

Body and Soul

Origen indulges in a lengthy philosophical discussion on the semantics of

corruption/incorruption, and mortality/immortality at II.III. Origen wonders whether

matter will eventually cease to exist and if any being can live without a body. He

concludes negatively on both counts, appealing to Paul for support. He quotes I Cor. XV,

“This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

After some elaboration, Origen concludes, “This matter of the body, then, which now is

corruptible, shall put on incorruption when a perfect soul, instructed in the doctrines of

incorruption, has begun to use it.”102 So the body cannot be resurrected until the soul is

perfected. Origen also says that the soul acts as a sort of clothing for the body in this

manner, covering it and protecting it. He also discusses the body as mortal and

corruptible, while the soul is immortal and incorruptible.103 This is, at a banal level,

classic Platonic dualism, but Origen does not take it to its logical conclusion. In keeping

with Paul, the body cannot be destroyed. The key reason Origen posits for this runs thus:

It will be seen to be a necessity that, if bodily nature were to be destroyed, it must be restored and created a second time. For it is apparently possible that rational creatures, who are never deprived of the power of free-will, may once again become the subject to certain movements.104

101 We would do well to remember that the arguments surrounding the doctrine of pre-existence were by no means settled during Origen’s lifetime. That is to say that these ideas of Origen were certainly not blatant heresy during his lifetime. 102 II.III.2. 103 How this fits in with what has been discussed above is hard to say. It could be incorruptible in a Platonic sense; that is, indestructible, but capable of sin. 104 II.III.3. Koetschau also inserts a quotation from Jerome Ep. ad Avitum 5, which is more explicit. Origen there says at the end, “…if rational beings shall again fall.” 37 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Origen here hints at the possibility of a second descent of souls, though he qualifies that

another fall like the first one (that is, a cyclical worlds cosmology) is not possible. This

potential for falling again is in keeping with his staunch libertarianism. Free will must be

maintained and bodies must remain in existence in the event that souls wish to take them

up again. This begs the question whether the soul migrates from one body to another

(requiring a shedding of the body by the soul) or whether its own particular body takes grosser shape (which would be in keeping with the resurrection of the body), but these points will be addressed in the next chapter. Other discussions of soul and body are few.

Origen posits the soul as the source of bodily movement at II.VIII.5, but says nothing else.

Koros

The final element to be discussed in this chapter is koros (boredom, satiety, or

negligence) as the ultimate cause of the fall of souls. The widespread use of the term

koros in this manner, by the likes of Philo and Plotinus, leaves us fairly certain that this is

the Greek term Origen employed as well. An analogical example of this sort of

negligence was mentioned in the introduction, with the doctor who loses his touch by

degrees after a spell of satiety. Edwards argues that this parable of the nodding artist is

grounded in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, also as we have mentioned.105 Aristotle’s

example does not serve the same purpose, his as more relevant to the mortal realm. That

is, the nodding artist in Aristotle explains how virtue works in the realm of human action

and is not concerned with the soul itself. On account of this, Edwards argues that Origen

is using the simile likewise, only applying it to the embodied state of the soul on earth.

105 Edwards, 2002. p. 93. 38 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

We have seen before, however, Origen’s adaptation of the classical Greeks to serve his own purposes. Unfortunately, the pertinent passage in Origen has a good deal omitted by

Rufinus. Koetschau again transposes from Jerome, leaving us to believe that Origen followed up his Aristotelian example with a cosmological discussion on the descent of souls into earthly bodies. Edwards denies its validity, but it is clear that something has been omitted by Rufinus.

Edwards then makes the useful distinction between koros in Plato and Plotinus and koros in Philo. In the former two, the use is cosmological—even a descent from

Nous to Psyche in Plotinus. In Philo, however, Edwards says that, according to Harl, koros is used in the sense in which Aristotle discusses negligence—in the mortal realm only.106 So Edwards concludes with the argument that Origen was condemned in 553 for a word—koros. But if we are convinced by the above-cited passages in Origen’s own works which affirm the pre-existence of souls, then there is no doubt that Origen would have used koros with respect to a cosmological decline, not only a mortal and moral one.

Also, it does not seem to be the case that Philo only uses koros with respect to the mortal realm, as Edwards has suggested. Philo describes the fall:

Surely then we must suppose that misery wholesale and all-pervading must be the lot of those souls which reared in air and ether at its purest have left that home for earth the region of things mortal and evil, because the good things of God bred in them an intolerable satiety (koron). And here they become the resort of thoughts and notions, numberless as the subjects with which they are concerned, some willingly admitted, some in mere ignorance. These thoughts are just like winged creatures and it is to them that [Moses] likens “the birds which come down.”107

106 Ibid. 107 Philo, Who is the Heir of Divine Things? Transl. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker. Harvard Loeb. 1996. 39 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Others too have argued that Origen imbibed his doctrine concerning the soul’s fall from

Philo, not merely his use of koros. One can indeed see parallels between Philo’s thought and Origen’s in this passage. One can see why scholars have argued for Philonic metaphysics in Origen. The catalysts of the fall as described in Origen do indeed parallel those of Philo. In the following chapter we will discuss the possibility of the transmigration of souls in Origen’s De Principiis, a discussion that will hopefully reveal many more of the nuances of Origen’s own beliefs on the free will of the soul, thus adding to the discussion above.

40 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

CHAPTER IV

TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS IN THE DE PRINCIPIIS Whether or not Origen upheld any sort of doctrine of transmigration of souls is at

the forefront of the debate as to whether he ought to be labeled a heretic, and hence

whether his anathematization is fully justified. We will approach this topic as we did the last, by looking at what Rufinus’ version of the De Principiis says, what Koetschau has

inserted, and finally what later Origen scholarship has to say about transmigration of souls in Origen’s writings. If we find that Origen does indeed uphold such a doctrine, we will then question his motives (Platonist, Christian, or other) for doing so.

The first instance in De Principiis comes immediately after Origen’s illustration of the nodding artist, demonstrating metaphorically how it is that a soul falls away. As is often the case, Koetschau has inserted the passage. Whether or not it is justified, something is obviously missing from the text; that is, there is a massive content gap in

Rufinus’ translation. This transposition is taken from Jerome, and is one of two passages that strongly echoes Plato’s Phaedrus. Jerome quotes Origen:

All rational creatures who are incorporeal and invisible, if they become negligent, gradually sink to a lower level and take to themselves bodies suitable to the regions into which they descend; that is to say, first, ethereal bodies, and then aereal. And when they reach the neighborhood of the earth they are enclosed in grosser bodies, and last of all are tied to human flesh.108

Koetschau adds more to the quotation from another passage in Jerome which argues that

souls might also descend into the bodies of irrational animals. Edwards argues

convincingly against this as a legitimate possibility in Origen (and even without Edwards,

108 I.IV.1. 41 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 the idea is fraught with inconsistency problems), something we will discuss later on. For now, let us focus on transmigration from one realm to the next.

In the Origen passage, the theme should be familiar. The negligence is the catalyst for the fall. Strangely, given the amount of commentary that assumes transmigration to be obviously deduced from this passage, it is not so obvious. It is not absolutely clear that we are to think that any given soul moves from one realm to the next, and then on to another. The passage could also be read as pertaining to one soul per realm. The rational creatures, says Origen, “take to themselves bodies suitable to the regions into which they descend.” Then Origen lists the regions, but he does not say that the soul has to stop in each one before it moves on to the next. A particularly negligent soul might go straight to the earthly realm, whereas one better off might only take on an ethereal body. Jerome certainly read the passage as arguing for transmigration, and Rufinus omitted something here that was perhaps unorthodox, but the ambiguity, I think, leaves it an open question, at least up to this point.

Plato's Phaedrus

Butterworth (our English translator) compares the passage to Phaedrus 246 b-d, and notes that Origen refers to this Plato passage also in Contra Celsum. But, transmigration in the Phaedrus is much more explicit. The framework of Plato’s discussion is different as well. Souls have wings (at least metaphorically) in the

Phaedrus, and it is when they lose these wings that they fall into the material world.

Naturally, there is no angelic realm for Plato, but there is a sort of Jacob’s ladder of souls.

Plato uses the metaphor of the chariot driver to illustrate the various positions of souls in the Real world. The better-off souls have more apt drivers, and thus a better view of the

42 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

beautiful, good, and true. Those not so fortunate crash into one another and can barely see

what’s worth seeing. But not everything is up to the driver. Two horses pull the chariot:

one is “beautiful and good”, while the other is from the opposite stock. One can easily

deduce that one of the horses is representative of the earthly realm, while the other of the

heavenly realm. Nehamas and Woodruff translate the Phaedrus passage thus:

All soul looks after all that lacks a soul, and patrols all of heaven, taking different shapes at different times. So long as its wings are in perfect condition it flies high, and the entire universe is its dominion; but a soul that sheds its wings wanders until it lights on something solid, where it settles and takes on an earthly body, which then, owing to the power of this soul, seems to move itself.109

There are, then, some differences between Origen and Plato, most arising from

the differences between their respective metaphysics. Plato’s is essentially dualistic.

There are souls without bodies in the transcendental realm, which are guided around by

their good and bad horses at different levels; and then there are souls that have had to

take on material bodies in the earthly realm on account of their poor driving in the

transcendental realm. Origen’s cosmology, however, is multi-layered. There are many more possibilities for a soul’s initial resting place after the fall. But what are the causes of the fall in Plato? And does transcendental-realm performance dictate what sort of life a soul inherits on earth?110 For the most part, Plato describes the fall of souls through the

same metaphor (horse and chariot), which makes it difficult to see what he actually

means. There is the bad horse, which is weighing the chariot down, and it might have

been the case that the driver “did not train him well” (247b). A more telling passage

109 Plato, Phaedrus. Nehamas and Woodruff, Hackett. p. 31 (246c-d). 110 Remember, one of the more important reasons governing Origen’s doctrine of free-will and pre-existence is the seeming injustice of different kinds of lives lead on earth—that is, the worse off must have done something previously to deserve such a lot, and so on. 43 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

comes at 248c. Plato describes the “law of Destiny” as dictating that any soul which

successfully flies at the highest level will continue to avoid being placed in a body so

long as it does so. What keeps the souls flying high is their ability to keep their eyes

trained on “true things” which act as nourishment for the soul:

If, on the other hand, it does not see anything true because it could not keep up, and by some accident takes on a burden of forgetfulness and wrongdoing, then it is weighed down, sheds its wings, and falls to earth.111

Here we see what might be the reason for the fall in non-metaphorical terms. The

souls by some accident (syntuchia) take on a burden of forgetfulness (lethe) and

wrongdoing (kakias). So it is by forgetfulness and wrongdoing that souls lose their wings.

The forgetfulness idea fits in nicely with Plato’s general metaphysics. We ought to remember the anamnesis that plays an important role in his ethics and his epistemology.

Remembering the true and the good and the beautiful is necessary for salvation (that is, to

leave, and remain outside of, the earthly body), an idea non-existent in Origen. An

explicit form of libertarianism is also absent from Plato’s works. While positing a strict

determinism in Plato is dubious, there still lingers ever-present Destiny. The reasons for

the soul’s fall, then, are different in Origen and Plato. What about what happens after the

fall?

Here, souls have more choice in Plato’s schema. And the possibility of

transmigration is explicit. During the original descent, the destination of a soul depends

not on the soul’s choosing, but on how much truth it saw while it was traveling around in

the transcendental realm. The souls who saw most might enter into bodies of

philosophers, while those who saw least will become tyrants, with other options in

111 Phaedrus, 248 c. Translation, Nehamas and Woodruff. 44 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

between these extremes.112 There is an important parallel here between Origen and Plato.

In both systems, souls are placed into certain kinds of bodies according to previous deeds.

What happens before the fall governs what sort of life a soul will live out on earth. Again,

however, to explain this position of Origen’s as Platonic is simplistic, and leaves out

Origen’s larger theological point: Origen’s ideas on God’s justice, and his disdain for

Valentinian determinism leave him with no choice but to posit a pre-existence of souls

where they earn their lot. If Plato, in working within the same system, is trying to explain

the differences of men’s lives on earth, he does not say so. That is to say that Origen’s

ideas on the preexistence explicitly arise out of his observations of men on earth and as a

reaction to Valentinus’ views of God as partial; if Plato, on the other hand, is arguing a

similar line (sans Valentinus, of course), he is doing so implicitly.

It is after this original descent and a life lived on earth, that a soul can choose the

next life it lives on earth in Plato’s system, given that it was neither too good (in which

case it might shed the body and ascend once more), or too bad (in which case it might be sent to the underworld for punishment). Humans can choose to live life as an animal, and

animals who were once humans can become humans once more.113 This is what Origen’s

accusers want him to be guilty of as well. But even if we had textual evidence (and what

we do have is unclear at best), the idea that he took it from the Phaedrus is improbable.

In Plato, there is an easy translation, since souls congregate in a particular place after

death to choose their next lot. This element, however, does not exist in Origen, at least

not in what is extant. Therefore, to transpose such a passage as the one that follows, as

112 Phaedrus, 248 d-e. 113 249 a-b. Animals who were not once humans do not have this choice, for their souls cannot recollect that which they have not seen, and recollection of the Forms is necessary to carry out a human life on earth; cf. 249 b. 45 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Koetschau does, leaves a gap in the logic of the system: “But by some inclination towards

evil these souls lose their wings and come into bodies first of men... then, after that, when

the faculty of reason is extinguished, it lives the life of an irrational animal.”114 The

irrational nature inherent in beasts also does not allow ascent without souls leaving

bodies (as in Plato’s system), and since souls do not shed their bodies in Origen, this

poses further problems. I think, then, without further textual evidence, positing that

Origen believes in the kind of transmigration where souls can move from human to animal bodies and vice versa, is irresponsible.

Edwards take a different line in arguing against Origen upholding the possibility

of souls descending into beastly bodies. Koetschau transposes thus from Justinian’s

Greek: “When the soul falls away from the good and inclines towards evil it becomes

more and more involved in this. Then, unless it turns back, it is rendered brutish by its

folly and bestial by its wickedness.”115 Edwards argues for metaphor or allegory in such a

position, and writes, “there is no anachronism in this allegory, and little originality. Both

Pythagoreans and Epicureans had suggested that the horrors of the afterlife are symbols

of the torments that we suffer when we give unbridled license to the passions.”116

Edwards’ argument here seems sound, especially given the ambiguous nature of the passage.

There are, however, other instances of transmigration in the De Principiis. The lengthiest discussion on the topic is a composite passage, composed by Koetschau and inserted at I.VIII.4 (the short quote above is drawn from here as well), based on the

114 I.VIII.4. From Gregory of Nyssa, De Anima et Resurr. 112 C. 115 I.VIII.4. 116 Edwards, p. 99. 46 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

writings of Gregory of Nyssa. The most blatantly heretical parts of this passage echo

almost verbatim the Phaedrus passage discussed above. There is talk of the soul shedding

wings, reason being extinguished, and a descent into the body of an irrational animal.

Butterworth’s footnote on Koetschau’s reasons for including the passage in the main

body of the text is quite surprising, in that Koetschau’s reasons are hardly convincing.117

It is certainly true that Gregory of Nyssa was no enemy of Origen’s, but Gregory nowhere mentions his theological mentor’s name in these discussions. He does mention an author who composed a work on ‘first principles’ who believed that before the earth was created there existed a whole nation of souls (that is, who believed in pre-existence, as it was discussed above). It is from this passage that the more benign aspects of

Gregory’s discussion are drawn (from Gregory’s De Homine Opificio). The malignant aspects were taken from an entirely different work (De Anima et Resurrectione). What causes Koetschau to link the two passages is the fact that Gregory, before both, discusses someone who believes in a pre-existent nation of souls.

The passage from De Ressurectione does not mention an author of a work on

‘first principles’. Gregory could just as easily be talking about Plato. In fact, if I were to

117 Butterworth’s words: “Jerome asserts that Origen ‘argued at very great length’ (sermone latissimo disputavit) that angels or human souls or daemons might for serious offences be condemned to inhabit the bodies of beasts, or even of fishes. The quotation from Justinian is in accord with this. But nothing of the kind is found in Rufinus. On the contrary, he summarily dismisses the doctrine of transmigration, as one that ought not to be accepted, being supported by false interpretations of scripture. Gregory of Nyssa, however, who regarded Origen as in some respects his theological master, has a passage in which he says that ‘it is the opinion of some of our predecessors, who composed works on First Principles, that before their bodies were made souls existed as a kind of nation in a realm of their own’. The allusion is clearly to Origen. In another work Gregory says, ‘I have heard from those who hold these opinions (i.e. on transmigration) that whole nations of souls are stored away somewhere in a realm of their own...’ The repetition of the last phrase connects the two passages. As the second one goes on to give an account of the fall of souls, it is reasonable to suppose that it corresponds to the sermo latissimus of Jerome, though not perhaps literally. The thought is Platonic in origin, based upon Phaedrus 245-249.” I.VIII.4. Footnote 8. 47 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

read the passage transposed from this work talking about someone who believes in a pre-

existent nation of souls, followed with a passage that is almost a direct quote from the

Phaedrus, I would naturally assume that Gregory was indeed talking about Plato, and

Koetschau gives us no other reasons for supposing otherwise. Koetschau’s only reason for linking these passages, and thus assuming Gregory to be talking about Origen both times, is the phrase “nation of souls”. To believe with certainty—enough certainty to include the passage in a work by Origen—that these were Origen’s words is to assent to a level disproportionate to the evidence at hand. Thus, I think it appropriate to dismiss the transposition from Gregory’s De Ressurectione as unconvincing, and thus useless.

The transposed passage from Gregory’s De Homine Opificio, however, may be

more useful, although we know that Clement also composed a work entitled On First

Principles. This passage does not lend us much proof in the way of arguing for

transmigration, especially not in the form of moving from human to animal bodies, and

vice versa. It actually might lend credence to Edwards’ argument for an allegorical

discussion of the bestial nature of souls. At one point, “Origen” says, “Now passion in a

human soul is a likening to the irrational. And when the soul has become closely associated with the irrational it descends to the nature of the brutes.”118 This passage is

more easily read as metaphorical than others. Also, likening irrationality to beasts is not

heresy, and likening the base passions to irrationality is commonplace Christian dogma,

albeit steeped in the Platonist tradition.

Regarding the remainder of the passage, if we are to admit that it is Origen’s, we

must also admit that it is not very Origenic. It has a deterministic theme that is not at all

118 I.VIII.4. 48 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

at home in the De Principiis, basically stating that once the soul has begun its decline

towards the irrational and thus bestial, there is no turning back: “Once it has taken the

road of wickedness it never ceases in its advance towards further wickedness, not even

when found in the irrational state. For the cessation of evil-doing means the beginning of

an impulse towards virtue; and among irrational beings virtue does not exist.”119 It is probably true that Origen believed there to be no potentiality for virtue in irrational beings, but that he argued for a necessary slippery slope to wickedness once the descent of rational beings had begun would be terribly inconsistent. His libertarianism would never allow for this as a reasonable possibility. The soul always has the opportunity to rise to a better state, a point that will become clearer in the next chapter.

Three Kinds of Transmigration

These, then, are the sum of passages in the De Principiis where Origen is supposed to have discussed the idea of metensomatosis, or the transmigration of souls.

Every passage was transposed, and often involved other reasons for doubting its authenticity as coming from the pen of Origen. Let us now turn to contemporary Origen scholarship to see what it has to say on this topic. Mark Edwards distinguishes between three types of metensomatosis in antiquity, and treats each one individually in Origen.

The first is from human to animal bodies, and conversely; the second is from one human body to another; and finally from the divine, daemonic, or angelic to the human, and conversely.120 Regarding the first, Edwards argues against its presence in Origen based on consistency, using a similar line to one employed above. He writes:

119 Ibid. 120 Edwards, p. 98ff. 49 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

If God had ordained migration into animals, he would have sentenced souls to punishment without leaving them the intelligence to understand the cause of it; nor would there be any opportunity of release in a further life, unless we grant to brutes the capacity to perform acts meriting penalty or reward.121

Here, Edwards is certainly right in pointing out that it is not in keeping with the spirit of the De Principiis to place human souls in irrational beasts. Edwards goes on to explain that after Pamphilus had written his Apology for Origen, which was a joint collaboration with Eusebius, Origen’s critics maintained their stance that Origen upheld the doctrines of pre-existence and transmigration, but no longer accused him of the kind of transmigration where souls move from human into animal bodies and conversely.122

Next, Edwards deals with the possibility of a soul moving from one human body to another, which he equates with Plato’s elaboration on transmigration in the Phaedrus.

Here, Edwards appeals to Origen’s Commentary on John, this part of which is still extant in Origen’s Greek. It is useful to quote Origen at length:

The man of the Church, for his part, repudiating the notion of re- embodiment as a falsehood, and not accepting that the soul of John was ever Elijah, will appeal to the aforesaid statement of the angel, who did not refer to Elijah’s soul in connexion with John’s birth, but to spirit and power, when he said, he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.123

Perhaps, then, Origen has absolved himself of this particular charge as well. We ought to remember, however, that the De Principiis was one of Origen’s earliest works, and the fact that he later on rejects re-embodiment in his Commentary on John does not mean

121 Edwards, p. 97. 122 For the short discussion, see Edwards p. 98. Unfortunately, Rufinus is the translator of this work as well, which itself does not exist in its original Greek form. 123 CommJoh 1.11, citing Luke 1.16. 50 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

that he did not entertain the idea earlier, even if only speculatively. Either way, as was

shown above, the evidence is insufficient to say positively.

Finally, Edwards discusses the most benign form of transmigration, and the one

that most easily fits into Origen’s cosmology, with few, if any, inconsistencies:

transmigration from one realm to another, from angels to humans to daemons, and

conversely. Much of what has been discussed previously plays a role here. B. Darrell

Jackson describes this kind of movement as “transcendental” or “trans-epochal”, when discussing the idea of freedom in Origen with respect to the soul’s transmigration. As he puts it, “Freedom as the principle of self-determination of a creature’s status is exercised

in one epoch of the creature’s life but effective primarily in the next epoch.” So,

circumstances in one epoch are largely determined by choices made in the previous one.

Origen termed these causes presbutera aitia, or “older causes”.124

Edwards makes it clear that this kind of transmigration, if Origen did indeed

uphold it, is not “a Platonizing error”.125 He argues thus on account of the uniquely

Christian elements involved in such a system. As he points out, the idea that every

daemon is a fallen angel is tradition, and needs no justification. The inverse, however, is

not. That a daemon might rise again to become an angel is only possible within the

confines of Origen’s particular view of God’s Justice and a soul’s freedom. All

punishment is remedial, a tenet which presupposes the freedom of the rational creature.

Edwards writes, “Whatever God foreknows about the choices of the demons, he has left

them at least the natural possibility of conversion.”126 Origen’s inclusion of Satan in

124 op. cit. Jackson, p. 15. 125 Edwards, p. 100. 126 Ibid. 51 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 these discussions (and perhaps daemons in general) sets him apart from the Platonist tradition, for Platonists did not, of course, believe in Satan. Aside from Satan, however,

Origen’s ideas on God’s Justice cannot be thought of as Platonic either. Their development and elaboration as Christian doctrine pushes their complexity and scope far beyond the confines of Platonic metaphysics.

Regarding the progress of humans to angels, Edwards discusses in lieu of the following quotation from the De Principiis:

Now the third order of the rational creation is that of those spirits who are reckoned fit for the replenishing of the human race, that is the souls of men, of whom we see some taken up progressively into the order of the angels—those, namely, who have been made ‘sons of God’ or ‘sons of the resurrection’, or those who, forsaking the shadows have loved the light and been made ‘sons of light.’127

Edwards offers a caveat here, though it is not thoroughly convincing: that we should be careful to accuse Rufinus of having suppressed a passage where Origen posits angels descending into human bodies before he argues for the converse. He goes on to interpret this passage as standing alone, that is, it is certainly possible to believe that man can rise to a state from which he has not fallen, but he does not want the opposite to be true. So, arguing that we shall be angels is different from arguing that we once were. This is true. As is what Edwards says next: “the notion that all mortals are expatriates from above” is denied elsewhere by Origen.128 However, to deduce from this that either no mortals are expatriates from above or that man can only rise to a state from which he has not fallen (which Edwards wants to do), is fallacious. All men did not have to once be angels for this kind of transmigration to be consistent. And I do not think that Origen

127 I.VIII.4. 128 Edwards, p. 100. 52 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

would have had a problem with the argument that some souls fall into the angelic realm

while others go straight to earth. In fact, this seems to be consistent with his argument

that each soul falls proportionately to his sin.129 So, if we concede this, and Edwards has already conceded that angels can fall into the state of daemons and that daemons might possibly be raised back up into angels and that men can become angels as well, then an argument against the possibility of angels becoming men feels like grasping at straws.

Why should angels only be able to fall to Hell? If the amount of sin dictates the distance of the fall, why ought angels only be either almost sinless or very sinful? Origen’s ideas of free will would seem to allow the possibility for an angel to fall only partially down.130

What we have, then, is a system where souls can move from one realm to the

next, over each given epoch. But this is a bit broad. An investigation into the last phase of

Origen’s cosmology is necessary to make this idea clear. We cannot discuss humans or

daemons becoming angels when all we have laid out is Origen’s views on the fall, but not his views on redemption. The final chapter will discuss Origen’s infamous apokatastasis, or restoration, and here it will become clear exactly how the ascent works and who is involved in it. The chapter will necessarily deal with what happens leading up to the final restoration.

129 See Chapter 1 above. 130 It must be granted, however, that this cannot be said with absolute certainty—any such arguments must assume something that is not there in the De Principiis. 53 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

CHAPTER V

PURGATION, EDUCATION, AND SALVATION The final chapter will be divided up roughly into three parts: first, God’s judgment and punishment (whether and to what extent God’s punishment is remedial); second, the salvation of the soul and what all that entails (whether the soul will be incorporeal, to what extent salvation is epistemological, and so on); and finally, the apokatastasis (whether Origen argues for universal salvation, and whether or not ‘the end will be like the beginning’ and what exactly this means). We shall approach this topic as every other, citing the instances where Origen discusses these ideas in the De Principiis, discussing those instances, and then examining secondary source commentary to see what it can add to the discussion. We will resign our discussion to the De Principiis, as we have done previously.

The Beneficent Nature of God’s Punishment

It makes sense to begin this chapter chronologically (with respect to the life of the soul), in keeping with the concurrent theme of the thesis generally. Naturally, salvation comes after the fall, and in the drawn out process of salvation in Origen’s system, punishment comes first. This is only with respect to the individual, however. Origen points out that God is exercising judgment continuously. He writes, “For we must believe that God rules and arranges the universe by judgment at all times.”131 He is speaking here about God’s impartial rule, that is, his just judgment that only punishes according to a soul’s merit, which is itself based on its own choices. This idea should be familiar from previous discussions on free will. The point to be made here is that the entire cosmos is in

131 II.IX.8. 54 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

a way arranged according to the free will of souls coupled with God’s respective

judgments. That is, there is no “judgment day” in what has become the traditional sense,

but even the earthly realm serves as a kind of punishment for souls that have chosen to let

themselves fall this far. Discussing a soul’s punishment in the sense of that punishment

only occurring after life on earth surrounded by lakes of sulfur is not an idea at home in

Origen’s cosmology. Every realm, including the earthly one, serves some purpose in the

soul’s redemption.

What we are concerned with here, though, is the kind of punishment that occurs

after a soul decides to start rising, specifically after life on earth. It might be useful to

delineate between salvation as purgation and what the next section of this chapter deals

with: salvation as a form of epistemological perfection. These are the two main stages in

a soul’s restoration. Regarding punishment, Origen is clear that it is never retributive, but

always remedial:

[T]he truth is that those who have sinned need severer remedies for their cure, and it is for this reason that [God] brings upon them the afflictions which, though aiming at improvement, seem at the moment to convey a sense of pain.132

So although the punishment may seem harsh, or unjust, it is not from hatred that God

exacts these punishments, but for the betterment of the particular soul. Origen even

explains the tougher instances of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Flood with the same

reasoning—that Gomorrah was eventually restored, and so was the earth after the flood.

He argues that “neither goodness without justice nor justice without kindness can describe the dignity of the divine nature.”133 The bulk of this discussion is a response to

132 II.V.3. 133 Ibid. 55 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

those who argue that the God of the Old Testament is different from that of the New, the

former supposedly “just,” the latter “good.” Origen of course concludes, after a long

digression that sounds very much like Plato’s Euthyphro in style, that goodness and

justice are indeed one and the same. This is an important point in understanding Origen’s

views on divine justice. All is for good; retribution is not consistent with God’s nature.

Origen also discusses the idea of subjective punishment with respect to the

scriptural references of “eternal fire.” He argues that there is no realm of eternal fire

constructed for all souls in need of punishment, but that each soul kindles its own fire:

So when the soul has gathered within itself a multitude of evil deeds and an abundance of sins, at the requisite time the whole mass of evil boils up into punishment and is kindled into penalties, bringing to memory through divine power all things the signs and forms of which it had impressed upon itself at the moment of sinning, it will see exposed before its eyes a kind of history of its evil deeds.134

The eternal fire is allegorical. And as we have mentioned in the first chapter, the qualification “through divine power” lets us know that the punishment is at the very least

in accord with God’s will, if not largely carried out by God himself, even if the time and

extent of punishment is based on the individual’s merits. Origen carries this idea further,

stating that this punishment takes place in the conscience of the sinner, not in an external

place like Gehenna. Clement of Alexandria, Origen’s teacher, has a similar interpretation:

“We, however, maintain that the fire purifies not flesh, but sinful souls; for we call it not the all-devouring and tormenting, but the discerning fire.”135 Origen, however, further

describes this kind of psychological punishment as tearing the soul asunder: as we feel

excruciating pain when our limbs are torn from the body, so the soul experiences a

134 II.X.5. 135 Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis VII. 6.34. 56 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

similar pain when it is rent into many pieces and finds itself “apart from that order and

connexion and harmony in which it was created by God for good action and useful experience.” He continues, “when the soul has…been tried by the application of fire, it is undoubtedly wrought into a condition of stronger inward connection and renewal.”136

Notice that even the worst kind of punishment has the result of renewal. Origen

equates God’s punishment with a bad tasting medicine, or worse, going under the

surgical knife (doubtless a more painful experience in antiquity than today). He continues

the analogy for a few paragraphs in II.X.2. Then, in part 3, Origen discusses the “outer

darkness” referenced in the Gospels as a place of punishment. Again, Origen takes this to

be allegorical and referring to the soul rather than to an actual physical location of

murkiness. The allegory is also epistemological: “[it is] a description of those who

through their immersion in the darkness of deep ignorance have become separated from

every gleam of reason and intelligence.”137 He then speculates at the possibility of this

murkiness actually describing the bodies of those who erred more significantly during

their earthly lives, in contrast to the bodies of the saints which will be “bright and

glorious.”

Finally, Koetschau has inserted another composite passage from Leontius’ and

Justinian’s Greek that seems to deny everlasting punishment:

There is a resurrection of the dead, and there is a punishment but not everlasting. For when the body is punished the soul is gradually purified, and so is restored to its ancient rank… For all wicked men, and for daemons, too, punishment has an end, and both wicked men and daemons shall be restored to their former rank.138

136 II.X.5. Origen goes on to cite numerous Old Testament passages which refer to this cleansing fire. 137 II.X.3. 138 Taken from Leont. Byz. De Sectis, Act. X. 6; and Justinian, Ep. ad Mennam. 57 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Koetschau speculates this passage to have been omitted by Rufinus. This is certainly

possible, but as we have seen, there is not an enormous difference between this passage

and the ones above: both refer explicitly to God’s punishment as always remedial. The

difference may be the phrase “for all wicked men, and for daemons, too…” but the above

passages are certainly not qualified with anything limiting God’s remedial punishment to

only good men and angels. For Origen to argue that God’s remedial punishment is

everlasting would be for him to argue that it is rather impotent as well. Let us move on to

the second stage in the restoration of souls.

Is a Soul’s Salvation Epistemological?

Let us begin by looking at those passages in the text that discuss how it is that the

soul begins to rise in the first place, that is, to discover what is involved in the salvation

of the soul. There is a lengthy passage in Book II that sets up our discussion nicely.

Origen is commenting on Isaiah 65:13, which reads, “they who serve God shall eat and drink, but sinners shall hunger and thirst”:

‘Wisdom has prepared her table, she has slain her victims, she has mingled her wine in the bowl and cries with a loud voice, Turn in to me and eat the bread which I have prepared for you, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.’ The mind, when nourished by this food of wisdom to a whole and perfect state, as man was made in the beginning, will be restored to the ‘image and likeness of God; so that, even though a man may have departed out of this life insufficiently instructed, but with a record of acceptable works, he can be instructed in that Jerusalem…139

In this passage Origen reveals the precedence he places on wisdom, or knowledge,

regarding souls in the afterlife. This particular proverb personifies Wisdom exhorting the

‘simpler’ folk to turn to her and eschew ignorance. Origen then extrapolates from the

139 II.XI.3. Origen quotes Proverbs 9:2-5. 58 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

passage that this food is requisite for a soul, or mind, or man, to be properly and fully

restored to God “as he was in the beginning.” It is important here to note that this passage

definitely does not view proper knowledge as a sufficient condition for salvation, but as a

necessary one. For a man with “a record of acceptable works” will be instructed after

death. Proper action, then, is not left out of the process of salvation.

Origen seems to be saying elsewhere that there is a natural desire for knowledge

ingrained in man, but which has become distorted, and weaker, with the fall. Origen

writes, “Let us see… how an eager longing for the reality of things is natural to us and

implanted in our soul.”140 Origen then goes on to “prove” the existence of this innate

desire for knowledge by practical example: when a man sees something beautiful made by a craftsman, he is eager to learn how it was so; and this desire increases all the more when he sees something made by God. Now, he argues, God would not have placed in

man such a desire to no end: knowledge of these things, if not possible to attain on earth,

must be learned at some point, or this innate desire would have been implanted in us in

vain. Here we return to Origen.

So when even in this life men devote themselves with great labour to sacred and religious studies, although they obtain only some small fragments out of the immeasurable treasures of divine knowledge, yet they gain this advantage, that they occupy their mind and understanding with these questions and press onward in their eager desire. Moreover they derive much assistance from the fact that by turning their mind to the study and love of truth they render themselves more capable of receiving instruction in the future.141

Here Origen elaborates on the idea of imperfect knowledge on earth, but the potential for

clarification after death. He concludes the discussion thus: “It is clear, then, that to those

140 II.XI.4. 141 II.XI.4. 59 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 who have now in this life a kind of outline of truth and knowledge there shall be added in the future the beauty of the perfect image.”142 And in a long passage shortly after this one

Origen tells us all sorts of things that we would learn, and concludes, “For now in this present life we seek, but there we shall see plainly.”143 This discussion indeed smacks of

Platonism, and this kind of emphasis on knowledge as salvific is hardly commonplace doctrine in later Christianity. Origen’s proximity to the Greek philosophers, and his training in Greek philosophy, may very well contribute to his tendency to describe aspects of salvation in epistemological terms. However, here, as elsewhere, this explanation is too simplistic. Origen is not here quoting Plato, but the Old and New

Testaments. So although these ideas might be described as Platonist, they are not necessarily any more so than the writer of Proverbs. Paul too mentions on several occasions the idea that everything will be clearer when he returns to Christ.144

Origen goes on to discuss knowledge-seeking by rational minds after death, and how knowledge becomes the food by which the rational being survives:

And so the rational being, growing at each successive stage, not as it grew when in this life in the flesh or body and in the soul, but increasing in mind and intelligence, advances as a mind already perfect to perfect knowledge, no longer hindered by its former carnal senses, but developing in intellectual power, ever approaching the pure and gazing ‘face to face’, if I may so speak, on the causes of things.145

There is indeed in the next realm no hindrance to learning as there is on earth. The earthly realm, and perhaps the body, will no longer get in the way of pure contemplation, and this will allow the mind, or soul, to become perfect on two different levels:

142 Ibid. 143 II.XI.5. 144 For one example, see Phil. 1:23. 145 II.XI.7. 60 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

And it attains perfection, first that perfection by which it rises to this condition, and secondly that by which it remains therein, while it has for the food on which it feeds the problems of the meaning of things and the nature of their causes.146

Origen at this point views salvation and perfection as basically purely epistemological.

Action has nothing to do with salvation once a soul is in the higher realms, but the soul has to be fully educated before it may be called ‘saved’. In fact, the only sustenance a soul has (and needs) is “the problems of the meaning of things and the nature of their causes.”147 Origen provides the analogy of a human body to describe the two kinds of

perfection. The body, when it is still growing, uses food in order to grow, but once it has

grown fully it only uses the food to sustain itself. In the same way does the mind grow

after life on earth, by continuing to learn, and then sustains itself on the knowledge of

things once it has grown in full.148

We made mention in Chapter 1 of the idea that Origen’s views of epistemological

salvation have a certain Aristotelian bent. The mind becomes more perfect by continuing

to learn in the same way that Aristotle’s ethical man becomes more virtuous by practicing

various acts of virtue.149 For instance, the courageous man may only become more

courageous by doing courageous things repeatedly, so as to find the golden mean between fear and rashness. Aristotle, regarding intellectual virtue specifically, writes:

146 Ibid. 147 We should here be reminded of the Phaedrus, where the best souls are those who can most properly understand the Good while riding on the carousel of the immortal realm, and it is knowledge that propels them. 148 II.XI.7. 149 We should be careful here not to give the soul itself full credit. There must be a Teacher for the taught in Origen’s system. Knowledge as perfection is only possible through the teaching of God through the Holy Spirit (De Princ. I.III.5). As Teubner writes, “It is both the imitation of wisdom and obedience to the teachings of wisdom.” Op. cit., Teubner, p. 7. 61 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Intellectual virtue or excellence owes its origin and development chiefly to teaching, and for that reason requires experience and time. Moral virtue, on the other hand, is formed by habit, ethos, and its name, ethike, is therefore derived, by a slight variation from ethos. This shows, too, that none of the moral virtues is implanted in us by nature, for nothing which exists by nature can be changed by habit.150

Origen’s theory of intellectual virtue seems to be more akin to Aristotle’s views on moral

virtue, in terms of mechanics. That is, Origen seems to be saying that practice makes

perfect, as does Aristotle regarding moral virtue. The similarity, however, breaks down

regarding the innate nature of these virtues. Origen says explicitly that intellectual desire

is innate while Aristotle holds that moral virtues are not. The comparison probably ought

not be pushed too far, say, to argue that Aristotle definitely influenced Origen on this

point, but there are clear similarities.

Where, though, does this education take place? Origen certainly does not claim to

have all the answers, but he does speculate at an ascent by rational beings to a sort of school for souls, which we also mentioned in chapter 1 above.151 This school for souls, or

rather for saints, Origen also calls ‘paradise’ and the saints are to remain there for some

time.152 Existence in this realm serves as an intermediary stage between earthly existence

and restoration.153 Origen, at this point, describes understanding in a “two-fold form,” echoing remarks made earlier about obtaining a proper knowledge of the phenomena we

150 Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. Trans. Jonathan Barnes, J.A.K. Thomson, Hugh Tredennick. Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Education, 1962. Bk II.1 1103b 151 And again, purgation, as we shall see, is not as easy as corruption. But, like descent, choice precedes ascent; it is up to each individual soul to decide the time and pace of the purgation on the road to salvation. We are delineating here between a school for souls that are already purged of their wickedness and a place where worse souls are in fact purged for their wickedness. The latter was discussed in the previous section. 152 II.XI.6. 153 ‘Restoration’ and ‘salvation’, I think, can be used interchangeably with Origen. ‘Perfection’ is also synonymous. Note also that Philo describes a similar intermediary realm (at De Somniis I. 22), in which the lower region of air nearest the earth is where disembodied souls gather. 62 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

sought to understand on earth, in the next realm. This ‘two-fold form’ might again be akin to Platonic dualism, and is never qualified with scriptural support, but the discussion

is brief. Regardless, Origen defines ‘paradise’ thus: “This will be a place of instruction

and, so to speak, a lecture room or school for souls, in which they may be taught about all that they had seen on earth and may also receive some indications of what is to follow in

the future.”154 So a great deal of learning will occur, and a soul’s purity and ability will

determine at what speed it ascends. Origen goes on:

If anyone is ‘pure in heart’ and of unpolluted mind and well-trained in understanding he will make swifter progress and quickly ascend to the region of the air, until he reaches the kingdom of the heavens, passing through a series of those ‘abiding places’, if I may so call them, which the Greeks have termed spheres, that is, globes, but which the divine scripture calls heavens.155

We might, then, understand the school for souls as having different classrooms and grades as well, where souls participate in learning according to their merits. On the ultimate constitution of the mind and its knowledge, that is, the final state of things for a particular mind, Origen writes:

[T]he mind will no longer be conscious of anything besides or other than God, but will think God and see God and hold God and God will be the mode and measure of its every movement; and in this way God will be all to it. For there will no longer be any contrast of good and evil, since evil nowhere exists; for God, whom evil never approaches, is then all things to it.156

So, once the soul has learned all there is to know, nourishing itself with the problems of the meaning of things and the nature of their causes, it merely contemplates God, and contemplation sustains the soul as eating food sustains the already grown human body.

154 II.XI.6. 155 II.XI.6. “Pure in heart,” Matt. 5:8. 156 III.XI.3. 63 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Origen makes clear shortly after that this realm should not be thought of as analogous to earth in terms of space and time, and warns the reader not to think of this place as one where rational beings are “confined within those narrow limits” of the body, but as not “enclosed in some one place.”157 Whether this means that the soul sheds the body completely is hard to say. It is not explicit in this passage, and Origen seems to go back and forth elsewhere, at times saying the body will be fully shed, at others saying that

God is the only bodiless being. Either way, one thing is clear: souls are by no means trapped in the kind of restricting body they find themselves in while on earth. They can move much more freely.158

In the most definitive and drawn out passages, Origen argues for a spiritual body for souls after death, not strictly different from the one that they inhabited on earth, but changed for the better. Origen explicitly denounces the Greeks for believing in a different body altogether for souls after death.159 He writes:

In regard to our bodily nature we must understand that there is not one body which we now use in lowliness and corruption and weakness, and a different one which we are to use hereafter in incorruption and power and glory, but that this same body, having cast off the weaknesses of its present existence, will be transformed into a thing of glory and made spiritual.160

So the body, rather than being discarded, is changed into one more suitable for the soul of a saint. It has often been argued that Origen believed in a bodiless state for the soul after death, probably resulting from his use of the term ‘incorporeal’. The confusion is not

157 II.XI.6. 158 Jerome interprets this and the above discussion as Origen postulating a complete shedding of the body and perhaps a morph of soul into pure mind with a more complete understanding of things (Ep. ad Avitum 7). It would be nice if Origen had been so clear, but we cannot argue anything nearly so strongly from Rufinus’ text. 159 III.XI.6. Contra Aristotle’s ideas of aether. 160 III.XI.6. 64 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

surprising, but Origen does not seem to mean bodiless when he speaks of rational natures

as incorporeal. The instance where this nuance is most clearly explained is lengthy, but it is necessary to quote it entirely:

God has created two universal natures, a visible, that is, a bodily one, and an invisible one, which is incorporeal. These two natures each undergo their own different changes. The invisible, which is also the rational nature, is changed through the action of the mind and will by reason of the fact that it has been endowed with freedom of choice; and as a result of this it is found existing sometimes in the good and sometimes in its opposite. The bodily nature, however, admits of a change in substance, so that God the Artificer of all things, in whatever work of design or construction or restoration he may wish to engage, has at hand the service of this material for all purposes, and can transform and transfer it into whatever forms and species he desires.161

Apart from the argument itself, which is not absolutely clear, the fact that this explanation

comes immediately after Origen has argued that souls will not shed their body, but will

retain a spiritual one, also lends credence to the argument that Origen is not here

describing a bodiless existence. The argument itself has Platonic overtones and definitely

describes some form of dualism.162 However, what Origen is describing in the passage is

the realm of the afterlife. He is not describing a dualism of realms, but of natures in the

same realm. From the above discussion we could deduce that Origen thought the dualism

to be less pronounced in the upper-realm than it is on earth. That is, the body, having

changed for the better after leaving the earthly realm, is much more suitable for the

rational nature (i.e. soul, mind, etc.) than it was as an earthly body where it was almost

always a hindrance. So, if Origen is indeed Platonizing here, which he may very well be,

he is not doing so to the extent that he posits a transcendental realm of Reality where

everything is without substance. Materiality exists in the next world for Origen as it does

161 III.VI.7. 162 See Plato, Phaedo 79 A. 65 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 in this one, but the material is used by God for much purer ends, and is not primarily a hindrance to the incorporeal elements of the cosmos: the mind, soul, and so on. So, the soul itself is incorporeal, but is always clothed with a body.163

The Restoration of All Things?

The final aspect of Origen’s cosmology to be discussed is the salvation of the soul specifically, or the apokatastasis in general.164 This is the eschatological doctrine of the final restoration of rational beings unto God and what is often cited as Origen’s most blasphemous idea, for it has often been argued (and not without reason) that Origen believed all souls, even Satan’s, to be eventually saved. In fact, aside from, perhaps,

Origen’s self-emasculation, his ideas on universal salvation are often all that a typical layman remembers from whatever biographical or theological information they have come across regarding this particular Church Father. We will see that, as with every other aspect of Origen’s cosmology we have discussed, there is much debate as to whether

Origen actually upheld a doctrine of universal salvation, and if not, what apokatastasis meant for him. The word is often Latinized as apocatastasis, and Henri Crouzel introduces the topic thus:

This word, which means restoration, re-establishment, with the Latin equivalent restitutio, usually denotes the doctrine of the restoration of all things at the end of time, a doctrine attributed to Origen and to Gregory of Nyssa. The noun apokatastasis and the verb apokathistemi are used by Origen, not very often and in various senses, some of which can be

163 Indeed, later Christianity too adopts at least a prima facie version of Platonist dualism regarding the soul and body. 164 The apokatastasis in Origen has been dealt with in contemporary scholarship probably more than any other aspect of his thought. Therefore, we will look at the relevant passages of the De Principiis in order to clarify this doctrine of Origen’s with respect to this one work. The reader should know, however, that relatively, there is an abundance of literature in the form of articles and essays on this topic. It should also be known that Origen’s work On the Resurrection, which could have provided much useful insight into his thoughts on these ideas, is lost. 66 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

taken to symbolize the final apocatastasis, others the return of the Israelites to their own country from exile. In the first book of the Commentary on John there is mention of ‘what is called the apocatastasis’, defined as the situation to which Paul refers in I Cor. 15- 25. The phrase ‘what is called’ shows that Origen is not the inventor of this apocatastasis and that he found it in what was earlier said about the Pauline verse. In the Treatise on First Principles the two occasions when apokatastasis is used in the texts of the Philocalia do not refer to our apocatastasis, but three times in Rufinus’s version there is reference to restitutio omnium or perfecta universae creaturae restitutio and sometimes the verb restituere is used in the same sense.165

So, even though Origen is often credited with devising this doctrine, we find that it is in one form or another rooted in Scripture. It is also notable that in the original Greek we have no reference to the heretical version of apokatastasis, but we do have multiples in

Rufinus’ Latin, a fact that calls into question those denouncers of Rufinus’ translations as especially apologetic and concealing. But we must reserve any definite claims until we have examined the passages ourselves.

One line of reasoning that may be applied to this discussion of Origen’s is his argument that ‘subjection’, when referring to the subjection of the world unto Christ, is synonymous with ‘salvation’. This certainly lends support to those who argue that Origen argued for universal salvation, for there is plenty of scriptural support for the idea that everything will eventually be subjected to Christ. Interpreting ‘subjection’ as ‘salvation’ leaves a small leap to the salvation of everyone (or everything). A key passage in this regard follows from Origen’s discussion on what it means for all things to be subject to

Christ, and then in turn for Christ to be subject to the Father. We are only here interested in the former, concerning which Origen writes:

If therefore that subjection by which the Son is said to be subjected to the Father is taken to be good and salutary, it is a sure and logical

165 Crouzel, 1985. pp. 257-258. 67 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

consequence that the subjection of his enemies which is said to happen to the Son of God should also be understood to be salutary and useful; so that, just as when the Son is said to be subjected to the Father the perfect restoration of the entire creation is announced, so when his enemies are said to be subjected to the Son of God we are to understand this to involve the salvation of those subjected and the restoration of those that have been lost.166

Origen then equates the subjection of Christ to the Father with the subjection of all

Christ’s enemies unto himself. If the former is good, then the latter must also be good; that is, subjection is here to be understood as salvation and restoration of those who have been lost. Origen then notes that this subjection will not come to fruition by coercion, but by education, in keeping with Origen’s doctrine of free will. He does mention that some of the more obstinate souls might have to be taught as slaves or children are taught certain things, “by means of threats and fear so long as their age renders them incapable of listening to reason.” But then he admits that how this sort of thing is consistent with the preservation of free will only God knows.167

Origen’s ideas on the consummation are often spoken of as God finally becoming

“all in all,” a reference to scripture which Origen mentions several times.168 This is a

result both of his thinking that the end will be like the beginning, and that since diversity

is a result of the fall, once sin has been vanquished and the fall reconciled, diversity will

cease and God will (again) be all in all. How we are to interpret ‘all in all’ in Origen’s

thought is difficult to say, but one interpretation is related to the passages in scripture

where it is said that “we shall be like him,” and “as I and thou art one, so they may be one

166 III.V.7. 167 III.V.8. 168 See I Cor. XV. 28; Col. I. 17-19; Eph. I. 22f. 68 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

in us.”169 Origen says, concerning these things, “Here indeed the likeness seems, if we

may say so, to make an advance and from being something similar to become ‘one thing’

(Ex simili unum fieri); for this reason undoubtedly, that in the consummation or end God

is ‘all in all’.”170 This passage well illuminates Origen’s motivations for his views on the

final restoration. Everything is eventually to be literally reconciled to God, an idea that

fits perfectly into Origen’s system of the fall creating diversity. If there was no diversity

before the fall when all was good, then there cannot be any after the restoration when all

must also be good.

Origen explains further what ‘all in all’ means. He makes clear that at all times

God is in all things, but only at the beginning and end is it the case that God is all

things.171 The passage also sheds more light on the idea of epistemic salvation, mentioned above. Origen further defines ‘all in all’ thus:

And [God] will be all things in each person in such a way that everything which the rational mind, when purified from all the dregs of its vices and utterly cleared from every cloud of wickedness, can feel or understand or think will be all God and that the mind will no longer be conscious of anything besides God and God will be the mode and measure of its every movement; and in this way God will be all to it.172

Origen shortly after writes, “There will no longer be any contrast of good and evil, since

evil nowhere exists.”173 First, then, Origen describes an epistemological purification of

souls whereby God is the only object of thought possible. This is only possible as a result

of a complete restoration of all things, for as long as evil exists, it exists as a possible

object of contemplation and thus as another potential catalyst for a soul’s fall.

169 John III. 2; John XVII. 24. 170 III.VI.1. 171 III.VI.2. 172 III.VI.3. 173 Ibid. 69 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Unfortunately, Origen does not elaborate on the vanquishing of all evil here, but if we

take into account all we have discussed, it is not terribly difficult to imagine how this

happens. It is an extremely long and drawn out process of the purgation and purification

of each individual soul to the point of a full epistemological purity in which all of the

souls’ desires would be positive. A universal contemplation of God would ensue and

there would no longer be any cause or need for diversity.174 This is Origen’s ‘all in all’.

For Origen to argue that the end is like the beginning lends further support to the

potentiality for universal salvation in his system. It is definitely the case that fallen souls

have not existed eternally, and we have dealt with the original purity of things in previous

chapters. So if the end is like the beginning, would this not entail that there is no more

evil and that there are no more deviant rational beings? Origen writes:

That such is the end, when ‘all enemies shall have been subjected to Christ’, when ‘the last enemy shall be destroyed, that is, death’, and when ‘the kingdom shall be delivered up to God and the Father by Christ, to whom all things have been subjected’, let us, I say, from such an end as this, contemplate the beginning of things. For the end is always like the beginning.175

This passage sums up much that we have discusses previously and attaches to the end the

idea that the end must be like the beginning, although the meaning is not entirely fleshed

out.

174 Although, we should remember, there would always remain the possibility for soul’s to fall again on account of the free will of souls. How this all works out Origen has admitted to be inexplicable. 175 I.VI.2. Origen goes on in this passage to discuss the possibility that some souls will become so evil as not to be able to return, but then he allows that it must be up to the reader to decide whether or not this is the case. If it is the case, then we have conflicting views within the De Principiis itself. If we view the work in terms of theme, Origen generally tends to favor the probability that all souls will be saved, even though there will always be the possibility of their falling away again. 70 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Origen also discusses how the end might be like the beginning while evaluating the term used in the New Testament, katabole. This, he argues, is improperly translated into Latin as constitutio, but rather ought to have the literal connotations of a “casting downwards.” The uses of this word in Scripture refer to the foundation of the world, hence the Latin translation. We ought not be surprised at Origen’s desire to translate it more literally if we remember that he believed the formation of the world itself to arise only out of the rational natures’ desire to fall away from God in the first place. A ‘casting down’ has a more negative resonance than does ‘constitutio’ or ‘foundation’, but there is nothing positive in creation as a result of the Fall for Origen. The voluntary descent of

souls and the creation as reaction by God constitutes the katabole for Origen. He writes:

A descent, therefore, of all alike from higher to lower conditions appears to be indicated by the meaning of this word katabole. Nevertheless the entire creation cherishes a hope of liberty, a hope of being ‘delivered from the bondage of corruption’ when the ‘children of God’, who had both fallen and become scattered, have been gathered into one.176

We see here that the entire creation cherishes a hope of liberty and deliverance from this

casting down of souls. But Origen is here insistent on the free will of souls as the cause for the katabole.177 He again argues that some men have not understood this diversity to

have arisen out of the freedom of rational natures and have therefore not been able to

“free God’s providence from the imputation of blame.”178 The hope of freedom from bondage, then, should not be in vain for any soul, as it is up to him to undo the ‘casting

176 III.V.4. 177 This general idea of ‘casting down’ smacks of neoplatonism given its emanationist bent. Creation for later orthodoxy had to be absolutely separate from God himself; that is, there must have been a gap, materially, physically, and so forth between God and his creation. This intricate distinction, however, had not been made by anyone earlier than Origen, and was probably not fully fleshed out until Augustine. 178 III.V.5. Again, Origen is here putting forth his version of the free will theodicy. 71 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

down’. Note also that Origen, in discussing the entire creation’s hope, adds that those

who had fallen and become scattered will eventually be gathered into one. This

contributes both to the idea of God as all in all and the idea that all creation will be

redeemed.

Origen sums up the final section of this chapter nicely at III.VI.3, his final mention in the De Principiis of the ideas that God will be all in all, that the end will be

like the beginning, and that souls will have a perfect knowledge of divine things:

If then the end is renewed after the pattern of the origin and the issue of things made to resemble their beginning and that condition restored which rational nature once enjoyed when it had no need to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so that all consciousness of evil has departed and given place to what is sincere and pure and he alone who is the one good God becomes all things to the soul and he himself is all things not in some few or in many things but in all things, when there is nowhere any death, nowhere any sting of death, nowhere any evil at all, then truly God will be all in all.

This passage is almost a complete summary of what we have discussed in Chapter 4, the

final stages of the soul in Origen’s cosmology as it appears in his De Principiis. Ideally, all souls will eventually be restored unto God after they have both been purged of their wickedness and have obtained a proper understanding of the nature of divine things through education. Evil, both in its external and subjective forms, will have been wholly vanquished, mostly on account of all God’s enemies becoming his subjects, themselves too being cleansed and educated. This is how the world was in the beginning and this is how it will be in the end. This is the apokatastasis; but Origen also reminds us that we can never forget the free will of souls.

Does contemporary scholarship agree with this picture of Origen’s cosmological

end? Some problems arise from the fact that we are here only dealing with Origen’s De

72 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Principiis while many scholars of Origen, especially when dealing with the

apokatastasis, try to develop a coherent philosophy from his entire corpus. We are not

here concerned with the rest of Origen’s work, but we can see what other scholars say

about his On First Principles.

Edwards notes, importantly, that at least one aspect of the end is not like the beginning: we have seen that the soul fell into a body on account of its free will, but also that the body shall be resurrected, if changed, with the soul, not cast off.179 He then goes on to show that the instances where we know that Origen used the term apokatastasis are not in keeping with the corresponding heresy for which he was denounced. He also shows that the word often had more negative connotations (especially when used by the

Stoics) from a Christian perspective than did Origen’s thought in general; for instance, as a theory of innumerable cycles of universes, a theory that Origen cannot be said to have upheld. Although this may be a valid assessment, that from the sources we have no decisive argument can be made that he used the term apokatastasis in an unorthodox manner (after all, it was also used in the New Testament), Edwards does not in this chapter deal with the more questionable passages we have seen above: that the end will be like the beginning, that all enemies will be subject (and therefore saved, according to

Origen) to God, that evil will cease to exist, and so on. So Origen may be exonerated from the charge of misuse of the term apokatastasis, but it is less obvious that he can be cleared of entertaining some of the not-so-orthodox ideas that went (go) along with this word.180 But the point to be made here in any event, and one which Edwards makes clear,

179 Edwards, p. 112. 180 Edwards does well to show that Origen often used words that are often associated with heresy in a non-heretical manner, but it seems to me, and I think it has been shown above, that Origen 73 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

is that Origen is developing most of his ideas on the consummation from, or at least

supporting them with, ample biblical evidence; he is not explicitly Platonizing or stealing

from the Stoics his ideas on eschatology.

In fact, in this regard, Crouzel argues that Origen’s apokatastasis is based on I

Cor. 15, 23-28.181 Crouzel also discusses the idea of free will in Origen should supercede

a universal apokatastasis.

If the affirmations of the universality of the apocatastasis which some find in his work must be taken in this sense [that is, that Gehenna is non- eternal] and regarded as propositions with dogmatic status, they would be in contradiction with a point of capital importance in the synthesis presented by the Treatise on First Principles, free will.182

This is a question we have seen Origen leave open-ended before in the De Principiis. We have also seen him say that a little prodding of bad souls for their own sake might not be so bad after all. But this is only one instance, and Crouzel is right to point out the primacy of the doctrine of free will in this and Origen’s other works. It would seem uncharacteristic of him not to leave open the possibility that some might not be redeemed, or that they might fall away again. Crouzel also notes, as we have mentioned, that on this question Origen in the De Principiis offers abundant hesitations, qualifications, and discrepancies, leaving any absolute statement on this matter impossible or irresponsible. Crouzel concludes his chapter thus:

A man as passionate about God and divine knowledge as Origen does not reach God by a system, but by all the means, intellectual and mystical, that are at his disposal, even if these means do not form a system ruled by rationalist logic, and in the dark places of the faith that

yet treads a dangerous line in his discussions on various aspects of the soul, regardless of how he uses certain particular words in these discussions. 181 Crouzel, p. 258. 182 Crouzel, p. 254. 74 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

is ours he is not ashamed to feel his way. But that groping is much more moving and interesting than the best constructed systems.

Regarding apokatastasis, then, Edwards is right to point out that Origen cannot be

convicted of using this term improperly, and Crouzel is right to argue that free will takes primacy with respect to universal salvation in Origen’s works. These two things can certainly be used to argue that it is unlikely that Origen felt so strongly about universal salvation that he would have abandoned his ideas about free will to maintain this heretical position. However, Origen, as we have shown, also maintained a strong doctrine of the beneficent nature of God’s justice, which entails, for Origen, the remedial nature of

God’s punishment. The goodness of God, I think, is as important for Origen as the free will of souls, and this is where he (and many other since him) run into problems in soteriology and eschatology. Which of these two ideas Origen held to be more important than the other, the goodness of God’s justice or the free will of souls, it can probably not be definitively said. He argues vehemently on behalf of both, and it may be the case that the two can be reconciled in some way where they both remain for the most part intact. I think this is what Origen is trying to do when he mentions the potential need of prodding the worst of souls to cause them to rise, but on the other hand he mentions the possibility of souls eventually falling again. In the De Principiis Origen is not absolutely clear one way or another, and perhaps he hedged often in his own mind, which would explain the ambiguous nature of some of the finer points of his doctrine. What does seem certain in

Origen is, at least, that God would never punish for all of eternity a soul that desired to be saved and was willing to work toward that end.

75 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Regarding the final chapter in light of the title of the thesis, Origen’s eschatology

and soteriology might be the least Platonic aspects of his psychological cosmology, and I think it is safe to say that Origen is more Christian than Platonist in this regard. The most

Platonic aspect of the final stages in Origen’s cosmology is his insistence on a large epistemological element being involved in the salvation of the soul. Plato surely would have approved, but for some reason, perhaps a general sentiment of anti-Platonism,

Christianity did not maintain (if it ever upheld) such an epistemic view of the salvation of the soul.

This thesis, generally, then, has attempted to exposit Origen’s doctrine of the soul

as it appears in his De Principiis, a work that in our day is fraught with textual problems

for a number of reasons. I have attempted to put forth a reasonably coherent and

responsible view of Origen’s psychological cosmology has been put forth, and that this

exposition contributes to modern understanding of Origen’s thought. More specifically, I

have attempted to illuminate, regarding each of the aspects of Origen’s doctrine of the

soul, to what extent he is Platonizing and to what extent he is writing within the realm of

Christian orthodoxy. Origen is certainly doing both to some extent, whether he is

conscious of it or not. Themes of Platonism inherent in Origen’s De Principiis abound.

However, I have attempted to show that many of the aspects of Origen’s doctrine of the

soul to have a strong Christian basis. Whether from the abundant scriptural evidence that

support epistemic salvation or that Origen’s maintenance of the preexistence of souls to

stem primarily from his attempts to defend Christianity against Valentinus and Marcion,

Origen has primarily Christian reasons for setting forth his doctrines. At almost every

point that Origen’s enemies have charged him with heresy, Origen can respond with a

76 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008 poem from David, or a line from one of Paul’s epistles. It might have been inevitable that

Origen escaped Alexandria with positive views of Aristotle’s ethics and Plato’s metaphysics. Rather than being accused of subverting Christian thought, Origen ought more often to be commended for trying to strengthen it by drawing on a peerless tradition of Greek philosophy. He has shown us that the writers of the New Testament are not themselves free from occasional Platonizing, and he always argued that rather than eschewing anything that smacks of Athens, Christianity ought to take from it what it can use for the improvement of its own doctrine, but to be careful of allowing it to supplant the major tenets of Christianity. I have tried to show that this is, at worst, what Origen has done in presenting his doctrine of the soul in the De Principiis.

77 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Trans., ed. Arndt, W.F., & Gingrich, F.W. The University of Chicago Press, 1957.

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Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics.

Billings, Thomas. The Platonism of Philo Judaeus. Garland Publishing, Inc. 1989.

Bremmer, Jan N. The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton University Press, 1983.

Chadwick, Henry. Early Christian Thought and Classical Tradition. Oxford University Press, 1966.

Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church. Penguin, 1990.

Crouzel, Henri. Origen. Trans. A.S. Worrall. Harper & Row, New York. 1985.

De Lange, N.R.M. Origen and the Jews. Cambridge, 1976.

De Principiis. Vol. 5, Origenes Werke. Ed. Koetschau. Leipzig 1913.

Edwards, Mark. Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus. Duckworth, 2006.

Edwards, Mark. Origen Against Plato. Ashgate, 2002.

Eusebius. The History of the Church. Penguin, 1989.

Ferguson, John. Clement of Alexandria. Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1974.

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Frakes and Digeser. Religious Identity in Late Antiquity. University of Toronto Press, 2006.

Greek New Testament, The. 4th Revised Ed. Ed. Aland, et. al. United Bible Societies, 2001. 78 Texas Tech University, Kirk Essary, May 2008

Jackson, Darrell B. "Sources of Origen’s Doctrine of Freedom." Church History, Vol. 35, No. 1. 1966.

Jaeger, Werner. Early Christianity and Greek Paideia. Harvard University Press, 1981.

O’Daly, Gerard. Platonism Pagan and Christian. Ashgate, 2001.

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Rombs, R.J. “A Note on the Status of Origen’s De Principiis in English,” Vigilae Christianae, Vol. 61, Number 1. 2007.

Runia, David. Philo and the Church Fathers. Leiden; New York : E.J. Brill, 1995.

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